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E AMERICAS 





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The Unity of the Americas 

A DISCUSSION OF THE POLITICAL, 

COMMERCIAL, EDUCATIONAL, AND 

RELIGIOUS RELATIONSHIPS OF 

ANGLO-AMERICA AND 

LATIN AMERICA 



BY 

ROBERT E. SPEER 

SECRETARY, BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN 
CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

NEW YORK 

1916 



^ It 1 8 



Published jointly by 

MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 

and 
LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 



^/^ 



7 



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CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Introduction v 

I, Political • • i 

II. Commercial «... 33 

III. Educational 63 

IV. Religious 89 



INTRODUCTION 

This small volume is merely a sketch of some of the 
material which the average man may not have at hand 
regarding Latin-American conditions and of some of 
the facts and principles which ought to be before him 
in order that he may think intelligently and sympatheti- 
cally on the highly important matter of our relations to 
our Latin- American neighbors. If, as these studies seek 
to show, we have some things which can be of service 
to our neighbors, they also have something to teach 
us of kindness and courtesy and high idealism in the 
face of great discouragements. There is less unity be- 
tween them and us than there ought to be. It is the 
aim of this little book to quicken the desire for more. 



POLITICAL 

The unity of the Americas is an aspiration against 
the facts. Happily not all the facts divide the American 
peoples, but our easy and optimistic view of the homo- 
geneity and community of sentiment of the American 
nations needs to be confronted v^ith its untruth. 

Diverse Heredities. The Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic 
nations of North America and the Latin nations of North 
and South America have diverse political and social 
ancestries and are divided by the consequences of their 
unlike inheritances. Senor Pezet, Minister of Peru to 
the United States in 191 3, set forth some of these facts 
in an address on "Contrast in the Development of Nation- 
ality in Anglo-America and Latin America," in which 
he pointed out the dissimilar charaqter, nature, surround- 
ing physical conditions, encountered difficulties, racial 
habits, political ideals, and family life of the two bodies 
of colonists: 

"Your territory, at the time of the advent of the white 
man from Europe, was more or less of a virgin terri- 
tory, inhabited by savage and semisavage nomadic tribes, 
thinly scattered all over a very vast area; while our 
territory was, to a very great extent, organized into states 
in a measure barbaric, but nevertheless, semicivilized, 
densely populated, and concentrated in a manner to 
make for cohesion. . . . 

"As the news of the discovery of the New World 

I 



2 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

invaded the European countries, two types, that were to 
mold the destinies of the wonderlands beyond the seas, 
were brought into play ; the one formed of the oppressed 
and persecuted by religious intolerance, the other of 
the adventurous soldiers of fortune, in quest of gold and 
adventures. 

''Both of these started out with set purposes ; the op- 
pressed and persecuted came to the New World to build 
up new homes, free from all the troubles left behind; 
while the adventurous came bent on destroying and carry- 
ing away everything they could lay their hands on. So 
here we have the true genesis of the formation of na- 
tionality in Anglo- and Latin America in the two great 
classes, the permanent and the temporary, the one to build 
up, the other to tear down and destroy. The one came 
with reverence, the other with defiance; both with an 
equally set purpose, but the one with humility in his heart, 
the other proud and overbearing: the one full of tender- 
ness born of his religious zeal, the other cruel and un- 
scrupulous. . . . 

"Let us glance," continues Sefior Pezet, "at the types 
of men who came to your and to our sections of the 
continent. The colonists of Anglo-America came from 
those countries of northwestern Europe where there was 
the greatest freedom, the nearest approach to republican 
institutions and government of the people and by the 
people, existent at the time. England, Scotland, and 
Wales, the Netherlands, French Huguenots, Scandina- 
vians, and Germans were the stock from which were 
evolved the American colonies. 

"The conquerors of Latin America were militarists 
from the most absolute monarchy in western Europe, 



POLITICAL 3 

and with these soldiers came the adventurers. And 
after the first news of their wonderful exploits reached 
the mother country, and the first-fruits of the conquest 
were shown in Spain, their most Catholic majesties, 
Ferdinand and Isabella, felt it their duty to send to the 
new kingdoms, beyond the seas, learned and holy monks 
and friars, men of science, and scions of noble families. 
With these came men of means and of great power at 
home. They brought a very large clerical force, com- 
posed mainly of younger sons of the upper classes; 
each one eager to obtain a sinecure, trusting to his rela- 
tives and powerful sponsors to better his condition, and 
in time, get his promotion to more important and more 
lucrative positions. . . . 

"Our men did not bring their women and families 
until many years after the conquest. In consequence, 
the Spaniards from the very commencement took to 
themselves Indian women and their offspring became the 
mestizos, a mixed race that the haughty and pure Cas- 
tilians in Spain never countenanced, although they wxre 
of their own flesh and blood. Later on, when conditions 
became more settled, the Spaniards brought their families, 
and after a time the Creoles came into existence. These 
were the offspring of European parents born in the New 
World."! 

Racial Confusion. How could anything but differ- 
ence of racial character develop out of such difference 
of ancestry? The Indian blood in the United States has 
practically disappeared. In 1900 the population of the 
United States was made up roughly of one half of British 

^Don Federico Alfonso Pezet, "Contrast in the Development 
of Nationality in Anglo-America and Latin America," 4-7. 



4 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

strain, three eighths of other European strains, and one 
eighth Negro. The dominant blood was European un- 
mixed with either Indian or Negro. In Latin America, 
as Sefior F. Garcia Calderon says: "the three races — 
Iberian, Indian, and African — united by blood, form the 
population. ... In the United States union with the 
aborigines is regarded by the colonists with repugnance ; 
in the South [Latin America] miscegenation is a great 
national fact; it is universal. 

"It is always the Indian that prevails, and the Latin 
democracies are mestizo or indigenous. The ruling 
class has adopted the costume, the usages, and the laws 
of Europe, but the population which forms the national 
mass is Quichua, Aymara, or Aztec. ... Of the total 
population of Peru and Ecuador the white element only 
attains to the feeble proportion of 6 per cent., while the 
Indian element represents 70 per cent, of the population 
of these countries, and 50 per cent, in Bolivia. In Mexico 
the Indian is equally in the majority, and we may say 
that there are four Indian nations on the continent: 
Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. . . . 

"The invasion of Negroes affected all the Iberian 
colonies, where, to replace the outrageously exploited 
Indian, African slaves were imported by the ingenuous 
evangelists of the time. In Brazil, Cuba, Panama, Vene- 
zuela, and Peru this caste forms a high proportion of the 
total population. In Brazil 15 per cent, of the popula- 
tion is composed of Negroes, without counting the im- 
mense number of mulattoes and zamhos.^ Bahia is half 
an African city. . . . 

^A sambo or sambo is the offspring of a Negro and a mulatto 
or an Indian. The latter union is here meant. 



POLITICAL 5 

"Is unity possible with such numerous castes? Must 
we not wait for the work of many centuries before a 
clearly American population be formed ?"i 

Divergent Political Ideals. The Latin and Anglo- 
Saxon nations of America have had also wholly different 
political discipline. The latter were real colonies of the 
mother countries. The former were not. "Absolutism 
in government, monopoly in matters of commerce and 
finance, intolerance in questions of dogma and morality, 
tutelage and rigorous isolation: these were the founda- 
tion of Spanish colonization,"^ says Calderon, and he 
thinks the methods practised by the Dutch and English 
in their colonies were not essentially different. But 
there were many and fundamental differences. In Latin 
America, Lord Bryce observes, "there were no elected 
assemblies or elected officials. All power came from 
above ; the people had nothing to do with administration, 
and were not enough permitted to subject it to public 
criticism. ... In the English North American colonics 
the management of church affairs belonged to the laity 
as well as to the clergy; and the New England Congre- 
gational churches in particular, founded on the principles 
of liberty, became direct exponents of popular feeling." 

When independence came in South America, "the in- 
habitants, accustomed to be ruled by others in state and 
in church, had never been given a chance of learning to 
think of government as their own business nor of them- 
selves as responsible for public order. When a long 
and sanguinary war had destroyed the habit of obedience 

^F. Garcia Calderon, Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 
356-360. 
' Ibid., 51. 



6 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

to constituted authority, they were remitted — constitution 
or no constitution — to that primitive state of things in 
which force prevails. . . . Whoever travels through 
these countries, — I include Mexico and Central America, 
but not Chile or Argentina, — and whoever, having thus 
obtained some knowledge of their physical and racial 
character, studies their history, finds himself driven to 
three conclusions. The first is that these states never 
have been democracies in any real sense of the word. 
The second is that they could not have been real democra- 
cies. To expect peoples so racially composed, very small 
peoples, spread over a vast area, peoples with no practise 
in self-government, to be able to create and work demo- 
cratic institutions was absurd, though the experience 
which their history has furnished to the world was needed 
to demonstrate the absurdity. The third conclusion is 
that injustice is done to the Spanish Americans by cen- 
sures and criticisms which ignore these fundamental 
facts. ... To understand these countries, one must 
think of them as having, under the rule of the Spanish 
crown and of the church, dropped two centuries behind 
the general march of civilized mankind."^ 

Among the leaders of Latin America and the leading 
foreign students of Latin- American conditions, there are 
many who frankly advocate oligarchical government. 
Professor Bingham expresses his sympathy with this 
view : "The great San Martin foresaw the advantages 
of oligarchy or monarchy and advocated something of 
the kind for the Spanish provinces of South America 
when they secured their independence. Unfortunately, 

^James Bryce, South America: Observations and Impressions, 
535, 537, 539, 549- 



POLITICAL 7 

his farsighted statesmanship ran counter to the bom- 
bastic notions of 'Hberty' held by the uneducated Creoles 
who had secured control of the reins of government and 
the result was the creation of republics."^ 

And Calderon, speaking for himself, says frankly, "a 
young Venezuelan critic, Sefior Machado Hernandez, 
having studied the history of his country, rent as it has 
been by. revolutions, considers that the best form of gov- 
ernment for America^ is that which reinforces the at- 
tributions of the executive and establishes a dictatorship. 
In place of the Swiss referendum and the federal organi- 
zation of the United States, autocracy is, it seems to us, 
the only practical means of government." He allows 
exceptions, however: '*In some states in which the eco- 
nomic life is intense, as in the Argentine, Chile, Brazil, 
and Uruguay, benevolent despotism does not mark the 
high- water limit of national development; there new 
parties are forming themselves, and the caudillos [politi- 
cal bosses of the old, military type] will soon disappear."^ 

The Latin-American Spirit and Character. Such a 
racial and political ancestry has produced a Latin-Ameri- 
can spirit and society unlike the spirit and society of 
Anglo-Saxon America. "The absence of that class of 
intelligent small landowners, which is the soundest and 
most stable element in the United States and in Switzer- 



^ Hiram Bingham, Across South America, 155. 

■ North American readers should note that throughout the book, 
in the quotations from Sr. Calderon, "America" and "Americans" 
are used as referring to Latin or South America, showing that 
the monopoly of the name by the United States is not accepted 
by Latin Americans. 

^Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 374, 372. 



8 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

land, and is equally stable, if less politically trained, in 
France and parts of Germany," says Lord Bryce, "is 
a grave misfortune for South and Central America."^ 
Says Professor Ross: *Tn each of these republics there 
are men of purpose as high and ideas as sound as one 
will find anywhere. But, in the absence of an intelligent 
self-assertive commonalty to respond to their appeals 
and to clothe them with power, this type come into office 
only by accident, so that in general the man who rules 
is either the army officer with troops to place and keep 
him in authority, or else the politician who has gathered 
about himself a great number of followers animated by 
the prospect of capturing political jobs and of being let 
in on such graft as the country may be made to yield."^ 
And what of Latin-American character? Is there such 
a character, a real Latin- American personality? Sr. 
Calderon answers for the higher critical thought of 
Latin America itself; he quotes Bolivar: "We are not 
Europeans, nor Indians either, but a kind of halfway 
species between the aborigines and the Spaniards ; Amer- 
ican by birth, European by right, we find ourselves forced 
to dispute our titles of possession with the natives, and 
to maintain ourselves in the country which saw our birth 
in spite of the opposition of invaders : so that our case 
is all the more extraordinary and complicated. . . . 
Let us be careful not to forget that our race is neither 
European nor North American; but rather a composite 
of America and Africa, than an emanation from Europe, 
since Spain herself ceased to be European by virtue of 
her African [Arab] blood, her institutions, and her 

'^ South America: Observations and Impressions, 533. 
''Edward A. Ross, South of Panama, 332, 333. 



POLITICAL 9 

character." And Calderon himself analyzes keenly the 
Latin- American spirit. It "is not a thing apart; it is 
formed of characteristics common to all the Mediterra- 
nean peoples. French, Greeks, Italians, Portuguese, and 
Spaniards find therein the fundamental elements of their 
national genius, just as in antiquity the Greek women 
found in Helen the reflection of their own beauty. To 
this spiritual synthesis Spain contributes her idealism; 
Italy, the paganism of her children and the eternal sug- 
gestion of her marbles; France, her harmonious edu- 
cation. 

"In the Iberian democracies an inferior Latinity, a 
Latinity of the decadence prevails ; verbal abundance, in- 
flated rhetoric, oratorical exaggeration, just as in Roman 
Spain. The qualities and defects of the classic spirit 
are revealed in American life; the persistent idealism, 
which often disdains the conquests of utility; the ideas 
of humanity and equality, of universality, despite racial 
variety ; the cult of form ; the Latin instability and vivac- 
ity ; the faith in pure ideas and political dogmas : all 
are to be found in these lands oversea, together with the 
brilliant and superficial intelligence, the Jacobinism, and 
the oratorical facility. Enthusiasm, sociability, and 
optimism are also American qualities. 

"These republics are not free from any of the ordinary 
weaknesses of the Latin races. The state is omnipotent ; 
the liberal professions are excessively developed; the 
power of the bureaucracy becomes alarming. The charac- 
ter of the average citizen is weak, inferior to his imagina- 
tion and intelligence; ideas of union and the spirit of 
solidarity have to contend with the innate indiscipline of 
the race. These men, dominated by the solicitations of 



10 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

the outer world and the tumult of politics, have no inner 
life; you will find among them no great mystics, no 
great lyrical writers. They meet realities with an exas- 
perated individualism. 

'Tndisciplined, superficial, brilliant, the South Amer- 
icans belong to the great Latin family; they are the 
children of Spain, Portugal, and Italy by blood and by 
deep-rooted tradition, and by their general ideas they 
are the children of France. A French politician, M. 
Clemenceau, found in Brazil, the Argentine, and Uru- 
guay, 'a superabundant Latinism; a Latinism of feeling, 
a Latinism of thought and action, with all its immediate 
and superficial advantages, and all its defects of method, 
its alternatives of energy and failure in the accomplish- 
ment of design.' "^ 

National Distinctions. The governments which the 
Latin-American race and spirit have established and 
conducted cannot be indiscriminately generalized with- 
out injustice. "There is as great a difference between 
the best and the worst of them as there is between the 
best and the worst of European monarchies. . . . 

"We may distinguish three classes of states. The first 
consists of those in which republican institutions, pur- 
porting to exist legally, are a mere farce, the government 
being, in fact, a military despotism, more or less op- 
pressive and corrupt, according to the character of the 
ruler, but carried on for the benefit of the executive and 
his friends. The second includes countries where there 
is a legislature which imposes some restraint upon the 
executive and in which there is enough public opinion 



Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 7S, 287, 288. 



POLITICAL 11 

to influence the conduct of both legislatures and execu- 
tive. In these states the rulers, though not scrupulous in 
their methods of grasping power, recognize some re- 
sponsibility to the citizens and avoid open violence or 
gross injustice. The third class are real republics, in 
which authority has been obtained under constitutional 
forms, not by armed force, and where the machinery' of 
government works with regularity and reasonable fair- 
ness, laws are passed by elected bodies under no executive 
coercion, and both administrative and judicial work goes 
on in a duly legal way."^ 

The general Latin- American principle is not federation 
but unity. As to political fraud and oligarchical domi- 
nation and revolutions the facts are not denied. "In 
Chile," says Professor Ross, "the reliance of the oli- 
garchy is not on force at the ballot-box but on fraud." 
"Educated in the Roman Church," says Calderon, "Amer- 
icans bring into politics the absolutism of religious dog- 
mas; they have no conception of toleration. The domi- 
nant party prefers to annihilate its adversaries, to realize 
the complete unanimity of the nation ; the hatred of one's 
opponents is the first duty of the prominent politician. 
The opix)sition can hardly pretend to fill a place of 
influence in the assemblies, or slowly to acquire power. 
It is only by violence that the parties can emerge from 
the condition of ostracism in which the}' are held by the 
faction in |X)wer, and it is by violence that the\' return to 
that condition. Apart from the rule of the caudillos the 
political lie is tritmiphant; the freedom of the suffrage 
is only a platonic promise inscribed in the constitution; 

-Bnce, South America: Observations and Impressions, 526, 
541, 542. 



12 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

the elections are the work of the government; there is 
no pubHc opinion. JournaHsm, almost always oppor- 
tunist, merely reflects the indecision of the parties. 
Political statutes and social conditions contradict each 
other ; the former proclaim equality, and there are many 
races; there is universal suffrage, and the races are 
illiterate ; liberty and despotic rulers enforce an arbitrary 
power. ... It is to the excessive simplicity of the 
political system, in which opinion has no other means of 
expression than the tyranny of oligarchies on the one 
hand and the rebellion of the vanquished on the other, 
that the interminable and sanguinary conflicts of Spanish 
America are due."^ 

American Disunity. Many of the political weak- 
nesses of Latin America have equivalents in the United 
States, but it is clear that Latin and Teutonic America are 
fundamentally separate and unlike. But where is there 
unity anywhere in North and South America? It is not 
in Canada. From the beginning the Dominion has been 
troubled by a radical racial discord and its geographical 
configuration is such that each of the three great divisions 
of Canada has closer natural relations southwards than 
it has with its neighboring Canadian people. It is not 
in the United States. For the first seventy-five years 
of our history our politics centered in an issue of division 
and, since the Civil War, besides the Negro problem we 
have had increasingly the problem of immigrant assimila- 
tion, and again and again our national political cam- 
paigns have been waged over supposed conflicting sec- 
tional interests. It is not in any Latin- American land. 



Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 369-371. 



POLITICAL 13 

Each one of these is a strange composite of race stratifica- 
tion and indiscriminate race blending. There is no 
unified race in any Latin-American -people. The unity 
is not to be found within any nation, north or south. 
A.nd it does not exist between nations. The United 
States and Canada are more distinctly separated to-day 
:han ever in their history. Between the different Latin- 
American nations, in spite of innumerable proposals for 
ronsolidation, there is no prospect of union and though 
:here is now creditable peace, there have been bitter wars 
md there are deep jealousies and divisions. Their 
)olitical traditions and favorable geographical condi- 
ions made the union of the United States possible. The 
50uth American colonists were never so united as to be 
ible to make one great nation. "Scattered over an enor- 
nous area, separated by the greatest natural boundaries 
hat nature has produced, it was scarcely to be expected 
hat they too should not follow the traditions of their 
■ace and build up local governments instead of forming 
L federation. The historical and geographical reasons 
hat prevent the formation of confederations have also 
nilitated against the building up of strong national 
governments. "1 

And their relations to-day do not greatly converge. On 
he other hand, Calderon says, "we observe among them 
. tendency toward further disagreement, toward an 
.tomic disintegration. Originally a different and a 
vider movement, in the sense of the close union of similar 
lationaHties, did manifest itself. The contrary principle 
)revails to-day, and it results in the separation of 



'Bingham, Across South America, 58, 59. 



14 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

complementary provinces and the conflict of sister 
nations. ... 

"To-day these peoples do not know one another. Paris 
is their intellectual capital, where their poets, thinkers, 
and statesmen meet. In America everything makes for 
separation."! As against our easy rhetorical glorification 
of our imaginary American unity it is well to recall 
these facts. 

It is necessary, if we are to do true thinking and to 
be fitted to deal with duty, that we should remember 
the unlikeness and disunity of Latin and Anglo-Saxon 
America. "Teutonic Americans and Spanish Americans 
have nothing in common except two names, the name 
American and the name republican. In essentials they 
differ as widely as either of them does from any other 
group of peoples, and far more widely than citizens of 
the United States differ from Englishmen, or than 
Chileans and Argentines differ from Spaniards and 
Frenchmen. "2 The present leading Latin Americans 
emphasize this difference. "Essential points of differ- 
ence," says Calderon, "separate the two Americas. Dif- 
ferences of language and therefore of spirit; the differ- 
ence between Spanish Catholicism and the multiform 
Protestantism of the Anglo-Saxons ; between the Yankee 
individualism and the omnipotence of the state natural 
to the nations of the South. In their origin, as in their 
race, we find fundamental antagonisms; the evolution of 
the North is slow and obedient to the lessons of time, to 
the influences of custom the history of the southern 



^ Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, ZZ^, 344- 

'' Bryce, South America: Observations and Impressions, 507. 



POLITICAL 15 

peoples is full of revolutions, rich with dreams of an 
unattainable perfection. . . . 

''Instead of dreaming of an impossible fusion the Neo- 
Latin peoples should conserve the traditions which are 
proper to them. The development of the European in- 
fluences which enrich and improve them, the purging of 
the nation from the stain of miscegenation, and immigra- 
tion of a kind calculated to form centers of resistance 
against any possibilities of conquest, are the various 
aspects of this Latin- Americanism. "^ 

The United States Distrusted. And it is just as well 
for us in the United States and Canada to realize that 
Latin America does not love us and is not occupied 
in gazing with longing upon our prosperity and with 
admiration upon our blameless political righteousness. 
It distrusts and misbelieves our purposes. It derides 
our commercialism. It looks to France, not to us, for 
ideas and ideals. "It is evident," says Manuel Ugarte, 
''that nothing attracts us toward our neighbors of the 
North. By her origin, her education, and her spirit, 
South America is essentially European. We feel our- 
selves akin to Spain, to whom we owe our civilization, 
and whose fire we carry in our blood; to France, source 
and origin of the thought that animates us; to England, 
who sends us her gold freely; to Germany, who supplies 
us with her manufactures; and to Italy, who gives us 
the arms of her sons to wrest from the soil the wealth 
which is to distribute itself over the world. But to the 
United States we are united by no ties but those of dis- 
trust and fear."2 Sr. Calderon calls us "the great plutoc- 

^ Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 311, 312. 
^John Bigelow, American Policy, 23. 



i6 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

racy of the North," "The Yankee peril;" our policy 
toward Chile he calls ''indecisive, turbid, Machiavelic." 
He monopolizes "America" as a term of speech applied 
to South America, as we have monopolized it for the 
United States. To be unified with the North American 
spirit would be racial suicide, he thinks. "Where Yankees 
and Latin Americans intermingle, you may better observe 
the insoluble contradictions which divide them. The 
Anglo-Saxons are conquering America commercially and 
economically, but the traditions, the ideals, and the soul 
of these republics are hostile to them." He declares, 
"To save themselves from Yankee imperialism the Amer- 
ican democracies would almost accept a German alliance, 
or the aid of Japanese arms ; everywhere the Americans 
of the North are feared." He sees no real unity in the 
United States. He does see "the triumph of vulgarity," 
the increase of divorce and criminality, "plebeian 
brutality, excessive optimism, violent individualism, con- 
fusion, uproar, instability." It is with Europe, and not 
with the United States and Canada-, that Latin America 
would identify its commercial, political, and cultural 
interests. "We find," he says, "practical mind, industrial- 
ism, political liberty in England; organization and in- 
struction in Germany; in France, inventive genius, 
culture, wealth, great universities, democracy. From 
these dominating people the New World should receive 
the legacy of Western civilization directly. Europe 
offers to the Latin- American democracies what they ask 
of Saxon America, which was itself formed in the 
schools of Europe."^ 

The people of the United States think of themselves 

^Bigelow, American Policy, 24. 



POLITICAL 17 

as so animated with the spirit of justice and good-will 
that they cannot conceive how other people should mis- 
trust them. But in the case of Latin America we gave 
opportunity enough for distrust in our war with Mexico 
alone, of which General Grant said that it was "one of 
the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a 
weaker nation." 

The Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine is the 
most familiar principle in our relation to Latin America. 
It had been foreshadowed in declarations of Washing- 
ton, Jefferson, and Madison, but it received its form and 
name from President Monroe in 1823. It grew out of 
a dispute with Russia over the limits of her possessions 
in the Northwest and alarm at the possible extension to 
America of the purpose of the Holy AlHance of Prussia, 
Austria, and Russia. It declared ( i ) that "the American 
continents, by the free and independent conditions which 
they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to 
be considered as subjects for future colonization by any 
European power;" (2) that it did not comport with our 
poHcy to take part "in the wars of the European powers 
in matters relating to themselves;" (3) that the European 
and American systems of government are essentially 
different and that the European system cannot be ex- 
tended to America. With existing colonies or depen- 
dencies the United States would not interfere, but the 
United States could not countenance any extension and 
"with the governments who have declared their inde- 
pendence and maintained it, and whose independence we 
have, on great consideration and on just principles, ac- 
knowledged, we could not view any interposition for the 
purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other 



i8 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

manner their destiny, by any European power, in any 
light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposi- 
tion toward the United States." This was the original 
doctrine. It has been given successive interpretations, 
however, which at one time narrowed and at another 
broadened its scope. Mr. Seward, at the time of the 
Maximihan Empire in Mexico, made no reference to it 
in his discussions with the French government. And 
President Polk in 1845, while he pushed out the meaning 
of the declaration in some regards, yet mentioned only 
North America. Bigelow in his excellent little book on 
American Policy traces the development of the Doctrine 
and its distinctions from and its confusion with the 
Bolivar idea of a Latin- American alliance, the Washing- 
ton precept of isolation of the United States from Euro- 
pean politics, the dominance of the United States in the 
western hemisphere, and the idea of Pan- Americanism. 

For many years the Doctrine was a bond of good-will 
between Latin America and the United States. The 
Latin-American nations gratefully accepted the strength 
and protection which it gave. But two things among 
others have tended to make the Doctrine a rock of of- 
fense. One was its extension, in the political thought of 
the United States, to cover the claim of the United States 
to practical sovereignty over all the western hemisphere. 
Can we blame Latin America for resenting this attitude 
of mind? The other ground of objection to the Monroe 
Doctrine to-day is the feeling of Latin America that 
it is able to look after its own affairs, that it prefers 
European relationships to the domination of the United 
States, and that the influence of the United States is 
more to be feared than any other peril. There are some 



POLITICAL 19 

who would abrogate the Doctrine or let it fall into 
abeyance. Others would have the United States invite 
Argentina, Brazil, and Chile to unite with the United 
States in maintaining it. Others would let history stand 
and would have the United States continue to act alone, 
doing what Is right and serving others as it can, while 
they would cultivate to the fullest extent the develop- 
ment of good-will and confidence and common under- 
standing through the growth of Pan- Americanism, that 
tightening of bonds which the Pan-American Union has 
done so much to promote. 

American Unity a Reality. Enough has been said 
about the elements of American disunity. Let us look 
away from these to the elements of union. There are 
many of these and they are far stronger than such writers 
as Calderon and Ugarte, representative though they be 
of the thought of Latin America, are ready to allow. 
Latin America and Anglo-Saxon America do already 
have more in common than either has with Europe as 
a whole. What are some of these things? (i) The 
principle of democracy. It is true that Latin America 
thinks the United States to be a plutocracy and that we 
think the Latin-American nations to be oligarchies, but 
as a matter of fact the democratic principle is inveterate 
in each. No Latin-American nation has ever been in 
danger of turning monarchy, however autocratic and 
prolonged Its presidential dictatorship. Sr. Pezet says 
that without having inborn in them any of the principles 
of true democracy, the Latin- American nations became 
over night as it were democratic and representative re- 
publics. But there was more democracy there than Sr. 
Pezet allows, and the Latin-American spirit to-day is 



20 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

immovably democratic. Titles and rank and dynastic 
interests are alien to it. It loves freedom. It is more 
akin to the spirit of the United States than to the spirit 
of France or any European race. (2) Latin America 
and Anglo-Saxon America have the common charac- 
teristics which came from the struggle to tame great 
areas. Japan is one third the size of Venezuela, but its 
population is as great as that of all South America. 
South America has a problem of nature subjugation 
more than forty-eight times that of Japan. We have 
fought a good part of our battle and have the qualities 
resulting from it. Latin America is just entering a 
nature discipline. (3) Our political community of in- 
terest is real and fundamental. Drago and Calvo of 
Argentina and Rio Branco and Ruy Barbosa of Brazil 
have striven as notably as our own statesmen "for the 
development and institution of an American international 
law." All the American nations deplore and must seek 
together to- protect themselves against the system of state 
relationships an.d diplomacy which has plunged Europe 
into the ruin and carnage of its present war. (4) The 
American nations have a common, traditional love of in- 
ternational peace. They have never built up great arma- 
ments or sought to preserve peace with one another by 
rivalry in arming each against the other. Before the 
European War it was said: "The twenty armies of 
Latin America aggregate on a war footing about 1,500,- 
000 men. Taking the army of the United States, in- 
cluding the militia and volunteers, as 2,000,000, we get 
3,500,000 as the total of the American military coali- 
tion. This force, hardly capable of united action, is less 
than the war army of any one of the three leading military 



POLITICAL 21 

powers of Europe — France, Germany, Russia."^ There 
have been wars in Latin America and periods of revolu- 
tion and anarchy and bloody dictatorship, but the heart 
of all America is a heart of peace. It is a different heart 
from that of the militaristic peoples. (5) America is less 
of a Babel than any other continent. Two languages 
practically cover all America. Portuguese is, of course, 
different from Spanish, but they are mutually intelligible. 
There are Indian dialects by the score, but these will die 
away with popular education. English is taught through- 
out Latin America, and Spanish increasingly in the 
United States. And what is more significant, we have 
more common thought by far than binds any other two 
continents. (6) We are united by a common faith in 
and zeal for education. (7) We are also united by a 
common spirit of hope. We are all Americans. "Seldom 
in Spanish America does one hear any one speak of the 
place his ancestors came from. . . . Seldom do South 
Americans or Mexicans seem to visit Spain. . . . For 
the Spanish Americans there seems to be no past at all 
earlier than their own war of independence."^ It is true 
that France has supplanted Spain, and that France means 
Paris, but it is not the past of Paris that appeals. The 
Latin- American people are a people of the future. They 
and we are moving forward together into new things. 

Common Problems. Above all, the Latin-American 
people and ourselves are facing great common problems. 

Immigration. The section on ''The Significance of 
Latin America to the Life of the World in Domiciling 



^ Bigelow, American Policy, 155. 

^Bryce, South America: Observations and Impressions, 514, 

515. 



22 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

now Overcrowded Populations" in the Report of the 
Commission on Survey and Occupation to the Congress 
on Christian Work in Latin America at Panama in Febru- 
ary, 1 91 6, sets forth the facts with regard to immigra- 
tion and they cannot be better stated. 

"Latin America is one of the few remaining large 
sections of the world at once productive and yet sparsely 
occupied. History is repeating itself in the turning hither 
of many to find homes under more favorable economic 
conditions than those under which they have been liv- 
ing. With an area of about 8,500,000 square miles it 
has a population of about 80,000,000, or less than ten 
persons to each square mile. Argentina, with an area 
of 1,153,000 square miles, has a population of about 
7,500,000, or less than seven to the square mile. New 
York state with 49,000 square miles has a population of 
9,000,000. In other words, Argentina has twenty-three 
times the area of New York state and about seven ninths 
of the population. If Argentina were as densely popu- 
lated as New York state, her people would number 220,- 
000,000. Brazil has over 200,000 square miles of terri- 
tory in excess of the whole of continental United States, 
but has less than one fourth as many people. Chile, with 
a territory nearly as large as Norway and Sweden, has 
less than one half the population. . . . 

"About 1,000,000 immigrants entered the Latin- Amer- 
ican countries in 191 3, of whom about 45 per cent, re- 
turned. Italy and Spain supply most of the immigrants. 
Many Portuguese, Russians, French, Germans, Syrians, 
Britons, Austrians, Swiss, Japanese, Chinese, East In- 
dians, and other people are also entering. While the 
number departing may appear large, it is not excessive 



POLITICAL 23 

when compared with the corresponding ebb in the United 
States from which twenty-five per cent, reemigrated in 
1 91 3 and forty per cent, in 191 2. The French, Spanish, 
and Portuguese do not have to change their type of civiU- 
zation and are soon absorbed into the Hfe of the people. 
The Enghsh, Germans, and North Americans retain 
their national habits, more tenaciously, but in the second 
and third generations are assimilative. . . ., 

''Latin America had a population of 15,000,000 a cen- 
tury ago; to-day it has about 80,000,000. Formerly 
immigration was restricted to the Latin race. With 
transportation facilities multiplying and cheapened and 
the Panama Canal open, these lands face all the congested 
areas in the world. On the east their doors open to 
Europe and Africa; on the west, to the millions of Asia. 
Latin America will have its day in the twentieth century. 
Calderon predicts a population of 250,000,000 by the 
end of the century. There are many who believe it can 
maintain a population of 500,000,000 or one third the 
world's present total. Reclus makes the statement that 
Latin America can feed one hundred persons per kilo- 
meter, or over 2,000,000,000."^ 

Social Problems. This immigration must be assimi- 
lated, and, while the climatic pressures are of course 
automatically active, Latin America lacks the assimilative 
agency of universal elementary education. The elements 
which constitute the labor class in Argentina and Chile 
are economically restless. ''Not long ago," says Pro- 
fessor Ross, "Efirico Ferri, the Italian sociologist, told 
the Santiaguans that the social question will find Chile 



^Report of Commission I on Survey and Occupation, 14-17. 



24 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

worse prepared to meet it than any other country. He 
was right. Blind to the signs of the times, the masters 
have neglected popular education, so that once these be- 
nighted masses come to feel a sense of wrong they will 
turn savage and destructive. The most thoughtful men 
in Chile anticipate the outbreak within fifteen or twenty 
years of a bloody labor revolt, which even the soldiers 
will not be able to quell because it will be universal."^ 
Latin America has a huge battle to fight against bad 
sanitation and hygienic conditions which needlessly in- 
crease the death-rate and impair national efficiency. In 
Lima the infant death-rate is double that of Hamburg or 
New York. In Chile one third of the children die under 
one year of age. It ought to be one of the most beautiful 
lands in the world. In Concepcion 46 per cent, of the 
babies die. What can be done to abate disease has 
been shown in Rio de Janeiro, which has been trans- 
formed from a place of death into one of the loveliest 
cities in the world. Latin America is awaking to the 
necessity of fighting alcoholism which combines with 
unhealthful living conditions to debase some of the Latin- 
American nations. Of Chile, Professor Ross says : "The 
neglect of public hygiene may be measured from the 
fact that in one of the finest climates in the world the 
death-rate equals that of Russia, being more than twice 
that of the United States and Western Europe and a 
half more than the mortality of Brazil and Argentina. 
The avarice of the great wine growers has prevented any 
state check to an alcoholism which cannot be matched 
elsewhere on the globe."^ North and South America 

^South of Panama, 376. 
=^ Ibid., 373. 



POLITICAL 25 

have the same battle to fight against this immeasurable 
evil. 

Sr. Pezet has spoken of the lax moral ideals brought 
by the early conquerors. And Sr. Calderon is even more 
outspoken with regard to the ethical inheritance which 
Latin America has had to transcend. "Sensuality and 
mysticism were the pleasures of the colonists. . . . 
Away from home, a host of illegitimate unions, of concu- 
bines, of clandestine amours." Latin America comments 
with just horror on our divorce evil. And at home it has 
to struggle with the marriage problem and illegitimacy, 
the latter calling for more lenient judgment than could 
be claimed where civil marriage prevails or the fees 
for ecclesiastical marriage are less exacting. Accord- 
ing to the census of Brazil in 1890, 2,603,489 or be- 
tween one fifth and one sixth of the population are 
returned as illegitimate. Mr. W. E. Curtis says that in 
Ecuador more than one half of the population are of 
illegitimate birth. At one time in Paraguay, after the 
long wars, it was estimated that the percentage of illegiti- 
mate births was over 90 per cent. In Venezuela, accord- 
ing to the official statistics for 1906, there were that year 
47,606 illegitimate births, or 68.8 per cent. In Chile the 
general percentage is 33 per cent., and the highest in 
any department a little over 66 per cent. In England the 
percentage is 6 per cent., and in France and Belgium, 
7 per cent. In Uruguay, in 1906, ^^Yi per cent, of the 
births were illegitimate. The statistics would seem to 
show that the moral conditions in Brazil are better than 
in any other South American land unless it be the Argen- 
tine, for which no statistics of illegitimate births are 
available. 



26 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

The Plenary Council of the Latin- American Bishops 
held in Rome in 1899, unflinchingly described the moral 
conditions which it deplored in Latin America. In its 
Acts and Decrees the Council declared : "The widespread 
pollution o£ fornication is to be deplored and condemned, 
but especially the most foul pest of concubinage, which, 
increasing both in public and in private, in great cities 
as well as in country villages, is leading not a few men 
of every station to eternal destruction/' 

The Advanced Nations. Thus far we have spoken 
of Latin America as a whole, but, as was suggested in 
a previous section, it is no more a complete unity than 
the United States. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uru- 
guay are so much more advanced and stable than the 
other republics as to form a group by themselves. Argen- 
tina is the strongest and at present the richest and most 
progressive. Its society has shifted most from the old 
colonial order. The Italian element ranks close to the 
Spanish in the national character. Its capital is the 
largest city of the world south of the equator. It is 
the Latin-American Paris. 'The forces contending for 
the soul of the Argentine people are the same that we 
know so well — democracy and plutocracy. The problem 
is how to transform the spirit of the Creole society with- 
out at the same time losing the poise, the self-restraint, 
the sense of honor, and the idealism fostered in the 
dominant element of the old regime, just as they were 
fostered in the bygone planter aristocracy of the old 
South. . . . Our people ought to feel a sisterly sym- 
pathy with this new motley people, engaged in subduing 
the wilderness and making it the seat of civilization. We 
ought to understand the problems forced upon them by 



POLITICAL 27 

the disposal of a vast public domain, the urgent need of 
means of transportation, the exclusive reliance upon 
foreign capital, excessive dependence upon oversea 
markets, heterogeneous immigration, sudden fortunes, 
the spread of the get-rich-quick spirit, wastefulness in 
government expenditures, and the reign of sordid in- 
terests in public life. Have we not had them all?"^ 

Brazil is the largest Latin-American land. Its area 
is 3,290,564 square miles. It is one half of South 
America. It is nearly as large as Europe and larger than 
Australia plus Germany. It has more than one third the 
population of South America. It is the most oppressively 
taxed land in South America; next to Argentina it has 
been most affected by immigration; it has the largest 
Negro population; it ranks second in trade; its people 
are singularly friendly and amiable, and they have done 
more by themselves to develop their country than any 
other South American people. 

Chile is, in Calderon's judgment, **a republic of the 
Anglo-Saxon type." The names of influential Chilean 
families show how much Anglo-Saxon blood is in the 
nation. It is, like Argentina, a land of great estates held 
chiefly by absentees and the produce of the fields flows 
into the cities. This is better at least than in Argentina 
where the wealth flows out to England and Germany. 
No Latin- American land exceeds Chile in energy or 
stamina. "Neither lottery nor bull-fight has ever struck 
root in Chile." The Indian strain has given it a touch 
of truculence. The nitrate finds taken from Peru have 
relieved it of the burden of normal taxation. Property 



'Ross, South of Panama, 137, 138. 



28 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

under $2,000 is not taxed, and on property above that the 
maximum tax rate is three mills per dollar, or about one 
tenth of what we pay in many communities in the United 
States. 

Mexico. Sr. Calderon has drawn an unbiased pic- 
ture of Mexico as Diaz left it: "He reorganized the 
finances. In 1876, at the beginning of Diaz's rule, the 
Mexican imports amounted to 28,000,000 pesos (silver) 
and the exports to 32,000,000; in 1901 the amount of the 
former was 143,000,000 and of the latter 148,000,000. 
The imports, a proof of the wealth of the country, had 
increased fivefold; the exports, a sign of agricultural and 
mineral production, had increased almost in proportion. 
In twenty years (1880- 1900) the yield of the mining 
industry increased from 24,000,000 to 60,000,000 and in 
the same period twenty banks were founded. . . . 

**He governed with the aid of the 'scientific' party — a 
group which believes in the virtue and power of science, 
exiles theology and metaphysics, denies mystery, and 
confesses utilitarianism as its practise and positivism as 
its doctrine. The Mexican politicians, in renouncing 
Catholicism after the Reformation and the passing of 
the Jacobin laws, have not abandoned dogma and absolu- 
tism in doctrine and in life. As in modern Brazil, posi- 
tivism is becoming the official doctrine. . . . 

"The scientific party, intoxicated by an orgy of utili- 
tarianism, has not sought to arrest the great plutocracy 
of the North by means of European alliances. 

"Unity, wealth, peace: these are the magnificent fea- 
tures of modern Mexico, the admirable work of the 
dictatorship. The Yankee peril ; lay dogmas which 
fetter intellectual evolution; a level of utilitarian medi- 



POLITICAL 29 

ocrity without ideals of expansion, without culture, with- 
out the true Latin characteristics ; popular ignorance and 
fresh revolutions: these are the disturbing aspects of this 
long period of tutelage."^ What inevitably followed 
this autocratic substitution for democracy we all know. 
The democracy reasserted itself, and needs help from 
friends. It is absurd for us to assume that poor Mexico, 
denied education and gripped in the monopolistic absorp- 
tion of a "scientific" oligarchy, must be dealt with as 
a stable and developed state, now that the untrained peo- 
ple have uprisen. Instead of hostility and misjudgment 
she needs from us constructive help in projecting a new 
agricultural democracy and a system of national in- 
dustries and moral education. 

Progress Inevitable. Sooner or later a new situation 
will arise in ever}- Latin-American land, either by proc- 
ess of peaceful development or through revolution and 
war. These lands are not standing still. We misjudge 
them if we regard them as unaffected by the same ideals 
and hopes which animate us. It is true that there have 
been many revolutions and that lands like Colombia and 
Ecuador can remember greater and freer days than they 
know now. But, as Lord Bryce says : "Argentina is now, 
like Chile, a constitutional republic, whose defects, what- 
ever they may be, are the defects of a republic, not of a 
despotism disguised under republican forms. The ex- 
amples of these two countries prove that there is nothing 
in South American air or Spanish blood to prevent re- 
publican institutions from w^orking. If the working is 
not perfect, neither is it perfect anpvhere else in the 



^ Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 159-163. 



30 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

world. . . . Taking the eleven South American states 
as a whole, their condition is better than it was sixty 
years ago. . . . Their difficulties were greater than any 
European people had to face, and there is no need to be 
despondent for their future."^ 

Our Duty. The Panama Canal is a sign and a pledge 
of our unity with Latin America. The motto of the 
Canal Zone is 'The Land Divided, the World United," 
and that motto has its deep moral significance. If the 
canal is thought of simply as an agency of gain and 
advantage to the United States and as necessitating the 
extension of our sovereignty over adjoining territories 
it will increase the suspicion and fear which Latin 
America already feels. If it is thought of as our con- 
tribution to the welfare and unity of all the American 
nations, as a means of common enrichment, and as a bond 
of friendship and understanding, we may go forward 
into a new day. 

It must be a day of acquaintance. As Sr. Pezet has 
said: "No man can truly appreciate another if he does 
not know him. No nation can feel friendship toward 
another if it does not know it. But to know should imply 
understanding, without which there can be nothing in 
common, and understanding is essential to draw in- 
dividuals together, and this is also true of nations. . . . 

"Therefore, if such peoples wish to become friendly, 
they must begin by knowing each other, becoming ac- 
quainted through intercourse, and thus discover their 
respective traits and characteristics, so that, in course of 
time, a sentiment of understanding is born, which, being 



^ South America: Observations and Impressions, 545, 548, 551. 



POLITICAL 31 

reciprocal, eventually gives way to friendship, and, in 
like manner, to amity between nations."^ 

It must be a day of service. We can begin with the 
thousand Latin-American students now in the colleges 
and universities of the United States and we must go out 
into all the Latin-American lands. There are in these 
lands, as the Commission on Survey and Occupation 
said at Panama, "all the conditions maturing for great 
movements and consequences. Crowded populations 
made aware of productive, unoccupied lands tend to 
migrate. The progressive stabilization of the govern- 
ments calls forth capital formerly reluctant. Railroads 
throw open regions hitherto inaccessible and idle. The 
advance of scientific sanitation renders the old cities and 
new territories safely habitable. Education overtaking 
illiteracy turns the weakness of nations into strength, 
raising reciprocally the ambitions, the productivity, and 
the economic consumption of millions. The resulting 
civilization, like that of the North, will be a congeries of 
many peoples and races with variety, yet essential unity. 
This civilization, fronting East and West, reaching out 
to all the continents, is veritably seated at a cross-roads 
of the world. Nations, like individuals, cannot mingle 
in the markets and exchanges, sit together in world 
councils, learn one another's languages, interblend their 
stock, without sharing ideas, ideals, and institutions. 
The people of Latin America, for their own sake, are 
eminently worthy to receive the maximum ministry Chris- 
tianity has to oifer. The multiplying and strengthening 
relations binding them to all the world render imperative 

^ "Contrast in the Development of Nationality in Anglo- 
America and Latin America," 3. 



32 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

and fitting their inclusion and identification with what- 
ever forces are joining efforts for the estabUshment of 
the kingdom of God on earth."^ 

The Latin Americans and ourselves are neighbors on 
these two continents by the will of God. They are not 
we, and we are not they. God might have ordered that 
all this Western world should be theirs or ours. He 
set us both here with our diverse racial inheritance and 
political, educational, and national spirit and character, 
separated by wide and deep divergencies which have pro- 
duced distrust and suspicion and misjudgments. But his 
will is a will of concord and unity, not of strife and dis- 
sension, and the various gifts of the diverse races are 
all meant for his use and are to be brought into his king- 
dom. More powerful, accordingly, than all the elements 
of dissension are his purposes of brotherhood and the 
forces by which all of the peoples of these Western con- 
tinents are being educated for a common service. Our 
similar equipment of natural resources, our kindred prob- 
lems in mastering nature and in creating honest, gener- 
ous, and purified societies, and our common duty to God 
and the world, mark out before us a common way. To- 
gether we need to seek and to tread that way, to offer and 
to accept all brotherly help, to sympathize and to under- 
stand and to trust, and to build in simple purpose and 
in sincere faith the enduring house of the commonwealth 
of God. 



^Report of Commission I on Survey and Occupation, 87. 



II 

COMMERCIAL 

Latin America's Handicap. In trade and industry 
as in politics, the Latin-American nations have an inherit- 
ance to reckon with. The Manifesto "Addressed to all 
nations of the earth by the General Constituent Congress 
of the United Provinces of South America, respecting 
the treatment and cruelties they have experienced from 
the Spaniards, and which have given rise to the Declara- 
tion of Independence," adopted at Buenos Aires, October 
25, 1817, sets forth in the wholesale style of such docu- 
ments some of the commercial injustices which the 
Latin-American peoples suffered. "The Spaniards," 
declared these sons of Spain who had breathed the 
air of American freedom, "placed a barrier to the popu- 
lation of the country. They prohibited, under laws the 
most rigorous, the ingress of foreigners, and in every pos- 
sible respect limited that of even Spaniards themselves, 
although in times more recent the emigration of 
criminal and immoral men, outcasts, was encouraged, 
of men such as it was expedient to expel from the 
Peninsula. . . . 

"Hundreds of leagues do we still behold, unsettled and 
uncultivated, in the space intervening from one city 
to another. Entire towns have, in some places, dis- 
appeared, either buried in the ruins of mines, or their 
inhabitants destroyed by the compulsive and poisonous 

33 



34 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

labor of working them; nor have the cries of all Peru, 
nor the energetic remonstrances of the most zealous minis- 
ters, been capable of reforming this exterminating sys- 
tem of forced labor, carried on within the bowels of the 
earth. . . . 

"Commerce has at all times been an exclusive monopoly 
in the hands of the traders of Spain and the consignees 
they sent over to America. . . . She carried on an ex- 
clusive trade because she supposed opulence would make 
us proud and inclined to free ourselves from outrage. 
She denied to us the • advancement of industry in order 
that we might be divested of the means of rising out of 
misery and poverty; and we were excluded from offices 
of trust in order that Peninsulars only might hold influ- 
ence in the country, and form the necessary habits and 
inclinations, with a view of leaving us in such a state 
of dependence as to be unable to think or act, unless 
according to Spanish forms. "^ 

The picture is doubtless of deeper shade because of 
the earnestness of the men who drew it, but it is not 
surprising that they set forth the facts bitterly. 

Modern Financial History. And the more modern 
commercial development of Latin America has had un- 
happy features also. Sr. Calderon sets forth the eco- 
nomic problems with criticism as competent and unspar- 
ing as that which he applies to the political conditions: 
"Unexploited wealth abounds in America. ... By 
means of long-sustained efforts, an active race would- 
have won financial independence. The Latin Amer- 
icans, idle, and accustomed to leave everything to the 



^Hezekiah Butterworth, South America, 72-77* 



COMMERCIAL 35 

initiative of the state, have been unable to effect the 
conquest of the soil, and it is foreign capital that exploits 
the treasure of America. . . . Loans accumulated, and 
very soon various states were obliged to solicit the simul- 
taneous reduction of the capital borrowed and the rate 
of interest paid. The lamentable history of these 
bankrupt democracies dates from this period. Little by 
little these financial contracts lost all semblance of serious 
business. In the impossibility of obtaining really solid 
guaranties the bankers imposed preposterous conditions, 
and issue at a discount became the rule w^ith the new 
conventions. A series of interventions in Buenos Aires, 
Mexico, Santo Domingo, and Venezuela, diplomatic con- 
flicts, and claims for indemnity resulted from this pre- 
carious procedure. Moreover, thanks to the protection 
accorded by their respective countries, foreigners ac- 
quired a privileged position. The Americans were sub- 
jected to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, before 
which they could demand the payment of their claims on 
the state; foreigners enjoyed exceptional treatment. A 
statute was enacted in their favor, and their govern- 
ments supported them in the recovery of unjustifiable 
claims. Sir Charles Wyke, English minister to Mexico, 
wrote to the Foreign Office in 1862: 'Nineteen out of 
twenty foreigners who reside in this unfortunate coun- 
try have some claim against the government in one way 
or another. Many of these claims are really based on 
the denial of real justice, while others have been fabri- 
cated throughout, as a good speculation, which would 
enable the claimant to obtain money for some imaginary 
wrong; for example, three days' imprisonment which 
was intentionally provoked with the object of formulat- 



36 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

ing a claim which might be pushed to an exorbitant 
figure.' 

"In face of the string of debts which arose from the 
loans themselves, or from claims for damages suffered 
during the civil wars, the governments could only suc- 
cumb. The immorality of the fiscal agents and the 
greed of the foreigner will explain these continual bank- 
ruptcies, which constitute the financial history of Amer- 
ica. . . . 

"On the one hand the budget is loaded to create new 
employments in order to assuage the national appetite 
for sinecures, while the protective tariffs are raised to 
enrich the state. Thus the forces of production dis- 
appear, life becomes dearer, and poverty can only in- 
crease. America has until lately known little of pro- 
ductive loans intended for use in the construction of 
railways, irrigation works, harbors, or for the organiza- 
tion of colonies of immigrants. 

"The product of the customs and other fiscal dues 
is not enough to stimulate the material progress of a 
nation. So application is made to the bankers of London 
or Paris ; but it is the very excess of these loan operations 
and the bad employment of the funds obtained that im- 
poverishes the continent. . . . 

"The budgets of various states complicate still further 
a situation already difficult. They increase beyond all 
measure, without the slightest relation to the progress 
made by the nation. They are based upon taxes which 
are one of the causes of the national impoverishment, 
or upon a protectionist tariff which adds greatly to the 
cost of life. The politicians, thinking chiefly of appear- 
ances, neglect the development of the national resources 



COMMERCIAL 37 

for the immediate augmentation of the fiscal revenues ; 
thanks to fresh taxes, the budgets increase. These re- 
sources are not employed in furthering profitable under- 
takings, such as building railroads or highways, or in- 
creasing the navigability of the rivers. The bureaucracy 
is increased in a like proportion, and the budgets, sv^elled 
in order to dupe the outside w^orld, serve only to support 
a nest of parasites. ... 

"To sum up, the new continent, politically free, is 
economically a vassal. This dependence is inevitable; 
without European capital there would have been no 
railways, no ports, and no stable government in Amer- 
ica. But the disorder which prevails in the finances 
of the country changes into a real servitude what might 
otherwise have been a beneficial relation. By the ac- 
cumulation of loans frequent crises are provoked, and 
frequent occasions of foreign intervention." 

And yet Sr. Calderon closes with this hopeful view: 
''Latin America may already be considered as independ- 
ent from the agricultural point of view ; it possesses riches 
which are peculiar to it : coffee to Brazil, wheat to the 
Argentine, sugar to Peru, fruits and rubber to the tropics. 
Its productive capacity is considerable. It may rule the 
markets of the world. The systematic exploitation of its 
mines will reveal treasures which are not even suspected. 
We may say, then, that even without great industries the 
American continent, independent in the agricultural 
domain, and an exporter of precious metals, may win a 
doubtless precarious economic liberty."^ 

Area. South America, both in its physical geogra- 



^ Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 378-382, 386. 



38 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

phy and in its people, presents vivid contrasts with our 
own continent. The two continents do not vary greatly 
in size. The areas of North America and South Amer- 
ica, according to the figures of the Pan-American Union, 
are 8,559,000 and 7,598,000 square miles respectively. 
But the two continents are of strikingly different con- 
figuration, and in the matter of river systems South 
America is more richly equipped than any other con- 
tinent. This water system renders the development of 
interior South America far simpler than the development 
of interior Africa. It can be made to do for these 
republics what China's water system, much of it artificial, 
has done for China. 

We can best appreciate the greatness of these South 
American nations by comparing them with our own 
states. Brazil exceeds the whole United States in size 
by an area of 200,000 square miles, or four times the 
state of New York. 

'Tn Argentina, located in the south temperate zone, 
with a climate like that of the United States, could be 
placed all that part of our country east of the Mississippi 
River plus the first tier of states west of it. 

"Bolivia is comfortably half a dozen times larger than 
the combined area of New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, and Delaware. 

*Tnto Chile could be put four Nebraskas. 

"Peru would obscure, if placed over them on the map, 
California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, 
and Idaho. 

"Paraguay is only four times bigger than the state of 
Indiana, while little Uruguay could wrap within its 
limits North Dakota. 



COMMERCIAL 39 

"Texas could be lost twice in Venezuela and still leave 
room for Kentucky and Tennessee. 

'*On the globe, Ecuador does not spread like a giant, 
but it could hold all New England, New York, and 
New Jersey. 

"Finally, there is Colombia, a land of splendid promise 
and mighty resources, whose nearest port is only 950 
miles from the nearest port of the United States. This 
republic has an area as great as that of Germany, France, 
Holland, and Belgium combined."^ 

Population. The population of South America is 
less than one half of that of North America. North 
America has about 136,000,000 people, of whom less than 
100,000,000 are white, and South America has approxi- 
mately 55,000,000 inhabitants, of whom less than 20,000,- 
000 are of pure white blood. South America is more 
thinly settled, with the population scattered over an 
immense area, than any other part of the world. Its 
population has grown less rapidly than that of any 
other portion of the world unless it is Africa. 

The 80,000,000 of Latin Americans can be roughly 
divided into the following racial groups: 

Whites 18,000,000 

Indians 17,000,000 

Negroes 6,000,000 

Mixed White and Indian 30,000,000 

Mixed White and Negro 8,000,000 

•Mixed Negro and Indian 700,000 

East Indian, Japanese, and Chinese 300,000 

80,000,000 
The population per square mile of some of the differ- 



^John Barrett, "Latin America, the Land of Opportunity," 28. 



40 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

ent countries of the world will show the opportunity for 
development in South America. The following figures 
are based on statistics published in the Statesman's 
Year Book and the World Almanac. They are for the 
most part for the years 191 4, 1915, or 191 6, but allow- 
ance should be made for the fact that areas and popula- 
tions of many of the countries now at war have varied 
greatly in the past two years. 

Belgium 652 Mexico 19 

England and Wales 633 Chile 12 

Japan 364 Brazil _ 7.3 

France 189 Argentina 6.9 

Guatemala 43 Peru 6.6 

United States 34 Bolivia 3.4 

Natural Resources. It is customary to speak with 
unlimited wonder of the wealth and resources of South 
America. It is not to be doubted that the continent has 
immense riches of agricultural product and mineral 
treasure waiting to be developed, but the general im- 
pression produced upon the observant visitor is disap- 
pointing. There are deserts more barren than the worst 
of ours. The tropical forests and vegetation are coarse 
and oppressive. The rain and warmth produce luxuriant 
growths, but tender things, green grass, and little flowers 
die in the shadows or are scorched in the heat. The 
table-lands of the Andes above the timber line and with 
too high an altitude for corn or wheat, the rainless 
stretches of arid soil, the sandy wastes even in the 
tropics, the swamps and miasmic forests must all be 
measured when we talk of the agricultural possibilities 
of South America. The great broken ranges of the 
Andes make many of the mineral resources almost in- 



COMMERCIAL 41 

accessible and the engineering problems involved in 
railways are far more difficult than with us. 

This is an overconservative way of stating the case. 
A much brighter view is possible. The Report of the 
Panama Congress Commission on Survey and Occupa- 
tion gives it to us: 

"Here are vast quantities of raw material with which 
to supply the world. Latin America has large areas 
to be eliminated from this reckoning. . . . But on the 
whole it is apparent that most of the agricultural soil 
has been little used where broken at all, while the mining 
resources have been scarcely touched. As soon as the 
countries are more adequately settled and scientifically 
developed, raw materials will pour forth in tremendous 
volume. The fertility of enormous sections in Brazil, 
Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Central America, 
Mexico, Cuba, and Porto Rico cannot be surpassed any- 
where in the world. The habitable, cultivable area south 
of the United States exceeds that of the remaining por- 
tion of the western hemisphere. It extends from the 
north temperate zone to Cape Horn, and hence has all 
the climatic conditions from tropical heat to arctic cold. 
All the varied products of the entire globe can be culti- 
vated." 1 

A land like Argentina justifies such a view. Already 
the foreign exports of the Argentine far exceed the 
exports of all the rest of South America combined, ex- 
cepting Brazil. As a commercial country it rivals Canada 
and outranks Japan, China, Mexico, Australia, and 
Spain. The country is still thinly settled, about 7 to the 



^Report of Commission I to the Panama Congress, 12. 



42 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

square mile as compared with 34 in the United States 
and 633 in England, and its agricultural resources are 
only on the threshold of development. There are 21,- 
000 miles of railroad as compared with 15,272 in Brazil, 
with new lines building in both countries. 

*'The producing capacity of the country is steadily 
increasing, and in cereal production its status is evidenced 
by the fact that as a corn exporter the Argentine Re- 
public took first rank in 1908, occupying the place 
formerly held by the United States. In the production 
of this foodstuff the country ranks third, and as a wheat 
grower fifth. It is first as an exporter of frozen meat 
and second as a shipper of wool. 

'Tn the number of its cattle the republic holds third 
place among the nations, being ranked with India and 
the United States. Russia and the United States exceed 
it in the number of horses, and Australia alone has a 
greater number of sheep. "^ 

The facts for the rest of Latin America are well 
summarized in the Panama Congress Report: 

''Brazil is also an agricultural country, producing 
sugar, cotton, tobacco, timber, rubber, cocoa, and nuts. 
At least two thirds of the world's coffee supply and 
one third of the crude rubber come from Brazil. In 
191 3 it had about 70,000,000 head of cattle, pigs, sheep, 
horses, and mules. The state of Pernambuco has forty- 
seven sugar factories. Brazilian foreign commerce, 
amounting in 191 3 to about $641,000,000, is still in its 
infancy. The imports in 191 3 exceeded the exports, but 
in the ten years previous to 191 3 the excess of exports 



'The Argentine Republic, 1909," 11,. 15, 17, 18. 



COMMERCIAL 43 

over imports amounted to $768,000,000. The country- 
offers " a great market for hardware, implements, and 
clothing. The mining territory has been only partially 
explored. Agricultural possibilities are enormous. States 
like Sao Paulo are proceeding to realize them. Virgin 
forests are full of rosewood and of other valuable hard- 
woods. The potential 'white coal' in the mighty Brazil- 
ian rivers as they drop from the plateaus is incalculable. 
The development of a single light and power company 
represents millions of dollars of capital. 

"The total area of Chile's agricultural land, most of 
which must be irrigated, is 95,000,000 acres, but less than 
2,000,000 acres are under cultivation. There are also 
nearly 40,000,000 acres of forest land which when cleared 
will become splendid farming land. The remainder of 
Chile is sterile, but Chile's ready wealth at present is in 
its sterile land, because of its great nitrate beds and 
varied mineral veins. Chile's greatest industry is the 
mining of nitrates. The value of this export alone was 
about $120,000,000 in 191 3. Her foreign commerce for 
the same year amounted to $270,000,000 or about three 
eighths as much as that of Japan. 

''Uruguay is agricultural and pastoral, exporting wool, 
wheat, flour, corn, linseed, barley, hay, and tobacco. It 
has a total of about 35,000,000 head of livestock. The 
foreign trade in 191 3 approximated $120,000,000. 

''Paraguay produces a native tea and tobacco. Bolivia 
exports tin, copper, silver, and rubber. She has extensive 
tracts of timber in the eastern section. Further agri- 
cultural development, perhaps remote, will open up mil- 
lions of acres in the lower levels of the interior. Peru 
produces gold, silver, copper, cotton, coffee, and sugar, 



44 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

and is now beginning to yield valuable rubber, hard- 
woods, and medicinal vegetable products. Its foreign 
commerce in 191 3 amounted to $75,000,000. Peru's 
arable area is equal to the combined areas of Oregon, 
Washington, Idaho, and California, with only seven per 
cent, of its surface under development. Ecuador pro- 
duces cocoa, Panama hats, ivorynuts, coffee, and rice. 
Colombia yields coffee, cocoa, bananas, rubber, salt, coal, 
and iron, and has probably some of the richest mineral 
areas in the world. The foreign commerce amounted 
to about $60,000,000 in 191 3. Venezuela has an immense 
area and great resources including mountain forests. It 
can grow a large variety of cereals, though its principal 
exports have been cattle, cocoa, rubber, and hides. 

"Mexico is well suited to agriculture, having both a 
temperate and a tropical climate. Here can be raised 
all the products grown in the United States and Germany, 
as well as those grown in central Africa and Ceylon. It 
produces corn, wheat, rubber, and coffee, and has rich 
mining territory and what are considered among the 
richest deposits of petroleum in the world. The mining 
output has reached about $90,000,000 annually. Foreign 
commerce before the recent revolution* amounted to 
nearly $250,000,000 annually. 

''The Central American nations in 191 3 had a total 
foreign commerce of $85,000,000. Cuba gives up al- 
most its entire energies to the production of tobacco and 
sugar, and is therefore obliged to import nearly every- 
thing else needed. Her total foreign commerce in 1913 
amounted to $300,000,000. Porto Rico's commerce with 
the United States and foreign countries in 1914 reached 
nearly $400,000,000. The principal products are sugar, 



COMMERCIAL 45 

tobacco, coffee, and fruit. Cuba and Porto Rico will 
increasingly supply the United States with vegetables, 
fruits, sugar, and • other table articles. Haiti and the 
Dominican Republic have a combined foreign trade of 
about $45,000,000; while that of the British, French, and 
Dutch colonies in Latin America amounts to about S35,- 
<:<xj,ooo."^ 

A tabular statement will show the comparative de- 
velopment of the various American lands, and will also 
indicate the distinction between the progressive and back- 
ward republics by the separate grouping of Argentina, 
Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. Central America and the 
other Latin states are also so grouped. The following 
statistics are a compilation from the Bulletin of the Pan- 
American Union, Koebel's The South Americans, the 
Statesman's Year Book, the World Almanac, and the 
Foreign Trade Department of the National City Bank. 

In all cases the figures given above are the latest 
available, varying from 1913 to 1915 for trade statistics, 
and for populations, in many cases earlier, on account 
of the infrequency of censuses. It should be remem- 
bered that the foreign trade of practically all the Latin- 
American republics has undergone a serious reduction 
as a consequence of the European war. The export 
trade of the United States and Canada are practically 
the only items in this table which have increased on 
account of the war, while in the case of ever}' countr}^ 
without exception, whose official statistics are at hand, 
a larger percentage of its imports for 191 5 were drawn 
from the United States than in 191 3. 



^Report of Commission I to the Panama Congress, 12, 13. 



46 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN COUNTRIES 





Area 
(in Thou- 
sands of 
Square 
Miles) 


Popula- 
tion 
(in 
Millions) 


Railnoad 
Mileage 


Total 
Imports 
(Millions 

of 
Dollars) 


Total 
Exports 
(Millions 

of 
Dollars) 




1,139 

3,218 

291 

72 


7.9 

24.3 

3.5 

1.3 


21,000 

15,272 

5,000 

1,600 


219 

146 

56 

36 


538 


Brazil 


257 


Chile 


117 




62 






Total 


4,720 

171 

514 

679 

116 

438 

393 

89 

32 

46 


37.0 

.8 

2.2 

4.5 

1.5 

5.5 

2.6 

.3 

.05 

.08 


42,872 

232 

756 

1,800 

365 

700 

633 

103 



37 


457 

2.3 

7.7 
23 

8 
18 
11 

8 

2 

2.5 


974 


Paraguay 


5 4 


Bolivia 


33 


Peru 


42 


Ecuador . 


12 




29 


Venezuela 


21 




13 




1 9 


Dutch Guiana 


2 5 






Total 


2,478 

32 
23 
49 

7 
48 
46 

8.5 


17.53 

.42 
.42 
.5 
1.7 
2.1 
.6 
.04 


4,626 

202 
430 
171 
263 
502 
150 
25 


82.5 

9.6 
7.5 
4.0 
4.8 
5.7 
5.9 
2.9 


159 8 




5 


Costa Rica 


10 




4.8 




10 


Guatemala 




Honduras 


3 9 




2 9 






Total 


213.5 

765 
44 
10 
19 

3.6 
13.4 


5.78 

15 

2.4 
2 

.7 
1.1 

2.28 


1,743 

16,000 

2,200 

70 

150 

220 

336 


40.4 

94 
155 

4 

4.4 
33 

58 


47.6 


M^exico 


145 


Cuba 


251 


Haiti 


4 2 




10 


Porto Rico 


49 


Lesser Antilles 


58 






Total 


855.0 

3,616 
3,892 


23.48 

102 
8.3 


18,976 

263,547 
31,670 


348.4 

1,778 
464 


517 2 


United States 


3,547 


Canada & Newfoundland . . 


629 



Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. These four 
republics include two thirds of the population, but they 
carry on seven eighths of the trade of the continent. 
Practically all of the immigration to South America has 
been to these four countries, and it is not without shame 
that we note that the parts of South America farthest 



COMMERCIAL 47 

from the United States are the most prosperous parts. 
Europe has done far more to develop South American 
trade and resources than we have done, and the best 
life of South America to-day is the life which has been 
most touched by northern European influence. 

The total population of South America is about 
55,ocx),ooo, its exports in 191 5 were about $1,134,000,000 
gold, and its imports about $540,000,000. The great 
excess of exports over imports would be a good sign but 
for the fact that a great deal of the capital engaged in 
producing the exports is foreign capital and that the 
earnings of this capital go out of the country. The same 
thing is true of most of the railway earnings. If it were 
not for Brazil and Argentina and Chile, these immense 
territories would show a commerce less than Denmark's 
alone. Even poor Persia has an export and import trade 
exceeding that of Paraguay, Ecuador, and Colombia. 
There are great resources in South America, but they are 
not easily developed. The local populations are incom- 
petent to develop them. Commercially, the continent is 
dependent upon energy and capital from without. When 
these are introduced, however, what has already been 
done in Argentina and Brazil shows what may be ex- 
pected in the development of South American resources. 
The total foreign trade^ (in millions of dollars) of the 
four republics commonly grouped together as the ad- 
vanced states, has grown in the period 1 894-191 5 as 
follows : 

Argentina from 194 to 757 

Brazil from 217 to 4o3 

Chile from 118 to 173 

Uruguay from 61 to 98 

^See Koebel, The South Americans, 358. 



48 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

In every case both the imports and exports of these 
countries have shown a decided faUing off in the period 
since the beginning of the European war. Yet the amaz- 
ing per capita trade of Argentina and Uruguay is still 
from 40 to 80 per cent, greater than that of the United 
States. Brazil, with a population of 24,000,000, exports 
as much as China, with a population of more than 320,- 
000,000. Argentina, with a population of 7,000,000, has 
exports and imports exceeding by $140,000,000 the total 
exports and imports of Japan, with a population seven 
times that of the Argentine. The exports of Brazil and 
Argentina combined, with a population of 31,000,000, 
exceed by $180,000,000 the combined exports of Japan 
and China, with a population of 380,000,000, twelve 
times the combined population of Brazil and the Argen- 
tine. In proportion, Chile far exceeds in her foreign 
trade both Japan and China. If Japan exported as much 
in proportion to her population as Chile does, Japan's 
exports would amount not to $353,000,000, but to more 
than $2,400,000,000, while China's would amount, not to 
$260,000,000, but to more than $10,000,000,000! From 
such facts one may gain some impression of the un- 
developed trade of the Far East, especially when he 
reminds himself that the trade of South America is only 
beginning. 

It is in large part because of the woeful undevelop- 
ment of indigenous manufacture that the imports of 
South America are so great. She exports agricultural 
and mineral products and imports all else, and some of 
the South American countries have to import foodstuffs 
also, although there is not one of them that could not 
amply supply a population many times as great as its own. 



COIIMERCLAL 49 

Inter- American Trade, G'e gi rhe greatest trade 



1909 
of $- 

wliik 
was5 
F r- 



t: ::.: 
belt in : 

of S 
creai 



cxmdiBCtei: 
^ast t:t^ 



X— tn 



50 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

of this total approximately $718,000,000 came from 
countries now engaged in a great war, the manufactur- 
ing, exporting, and financial facilities of which are to- 
day either paralyzed or greatly lessened in efficiency of 
operation and production. 

"Considering next the exports of Latin America, we 
have an even greater field of mingled responsibility and 
opportunity for the legitimate activity of the United 
States. It would be selfish indeed and cold-blooded in 
such a crisis for the business interests of the United 
States to think only of selling to Latin America and not 
of buying from her so as to provide a market for her 
accumulating raw products and other exports that usu- 
ally go to Europe. Fair exchange is no robbery, and 
in this unique situation it may develop comity and confi- 
dence as well as commerce. All Latin America, in 1913, 
exported products valued at $1,538,916,812. Of this 
total the share of Great Britain was $316,419,914; Ger- 
many, $192,394,702; France, $120,907,415; Belgium, 
$62,557,566; Netherlands, $43,277,631; Italy, $27,964,- 
001 ; Austria-Hungary, $23,294,991 ; and all other coun- 
tries, excepting the United States, $247,722,380. . . . The 
share of the United States in the exports of Latin Amer- 
ica was larger than that of any other country and 
amounted to $504,378,212. While it may surprise the 
average man that the United States buys to this extent 
from Latin America, he must not forget that there re- 
mained the large total of $1,034,538,600 purchased by 
other countries. Of this big total, $715,474,588 were 
bought by those lands which are at present engaged in 
desperate warfare. If then in some way the United 
States can enlarge its purchases from Latin America it 



COMMERCIAL 51 

will greatly aid in reducing the unproductive congestion 
and relieving the financial strain that must otherwise 
characterize the principal exporting centers of Latin 
America."^ 

The course of trade has turned now from Europe to 
the United States, and is gaining steadily. In the four 
years, 1909 to 1912, our trade with South America in- 
creased from $277,000,000 to $373,000,000. 

Exports from the United States increased during the 
four years, to Chile 140 per cent. ; to Venezuela, 116 per 
cent. ; to Brazil, 104 per cent. ; to Colombia, 94 per cent. ; 
to Uruguay, 82 per cent. ; to Argentina, 41 per cent. ; 
and to Peru, 36 per cent. 

In dollars the trade to Brazil shows the largest in- 
crease, having jumped from $20,000,000 in 1909, to 
$41,000,000 in 1912. In Argentina it increased from 
$36,000,000 to $51,000,000; in Chile from $7,000,000 to 
$15,000,000; and in Venezuela from $2,500,000 to $5,- 
700,000. 

"Imports from these countries increased to much 
larger totals, but not in as great proportion as the ex- 
ports to them. From Brazil this country imported in 
1909 goods valued at $134,000,000 and in 1912 at $173,- 
000,000; from Argentina, $64,000,000 and $85,000,000; 
from Chile, $23,000,000 and $38,000,000 ; from Colombia, 
$12,000,000 and $21,000,000; and from Venezuela, $10,- 
000,000 and $i7,ooo,ooo."2 

In January, 1916, our exports to South America were 
more than double those of January, 191 5, and for the 
seven months ending with January, 1916, were more 

^Barrett, "The Pan-American Era," 3, 5. 
'Boston Herald, March 3, 1913. 



52 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

than double those for the corresponding months preced- 
ing. The "General Survey of Latin-American Trade in 
1913," published by the Pan-American Union, declares: 

"The United States controls nearly three tenths of all 
Latin-American trade. This is over one third to one 
half more than that controlled by its nearest rival, the 
United Kingdom, and double or more than double the 
proportion of Germany. To many Americans this state- 
ment sometimes causes surprise. . . . 

"In the northern group of states, Mexico, Central 
America, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, to 
w^hich are added Venezuela and Colombia in South Amer- 
ica, the United States controls about 60 per cent, of the 
v^hole trade of these tv^elve countries, as is shown by 
the follovv^ing table: 

1913 Imports Exports Total 

Total trade $350,697,079 $455,05i,49i $795,748,570 

Share of the United States, I744i9,399 300,549,379 474,968,778 

Per cent, of the United States, 49.7 67.5 59.6 

"In addition to the countries mentioned, the United 
States leads in the total trade of Ecuador, in Peru it leads 
in imports, and is a close second to the United Kingdom 
in total trade. In Brazil it has a commanding lead in 
exports, its takings from Brazil being more than tv^ice 
that of any other two countries. In the five countries not 
mentioned the trade of the United States ranks below 
that of both the United Kingdom and Germany. 

"For a number of years the United States has been 
the leading country in Latin- American exports; that is, 
it has taken more of the products of these republics than 
has any other country of the world, but heretofore it has 
always been second to the United Kingdom [in imports]. 



COMMERCIAL 53 

In 1913, for the first time in histor}', the United States 
led in Latin-American imports as well as in exports. 
This is the most significant fact to be derived from the 
study of the figures for that year. So far from being 
distanced by Europe, the United States has in fact gained 
more rapidly than any of its rivals, not only in the north- 
ern or near-by group of countries, but also in the southern. 
Lender normal conditions and if the European war had 
never occurred, ever)1:hing pointed to the belief that 
the great bulk of the trade, both in imports and in ex- 
ports, for nearly ever}^ one of the Latin- American coun- 
tries, would in a few years move north and south and 
not east and west."^ 

Foreign Capital. Foreign capital is absolutely 
essential to the development of Latin America, and yet 
the introduction of foreign capital has the disadvantages 
referred to by Sr. Calderon. It introduces the risk of 
political complications. It is often wasted. It leaves in 
Latin America wages, permanent improvements, and 
accessor}- benefits, but it transfers to the investing lands 
the profits on the investment. This needs to be kept in 
mind in thinking of the agricultural and mineral pro- 
ducts of these lands. We can easily deceive ourselves as 
to their prosperity. When we realize the facts we can 
sympathize with the unreflecting and indiscriminate 
antagonism to foreign capital sometimes displayed. The 
facts regarding British investments in South America' 
and the question which they present to the Christian 
conscience are set forth in a leaflet of the South Amer- 
ican ^Missionary Society of Great Britain as follows: 



^Bulletin of the Pan-American Union, 1914, 981, 982. 



54 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

''The South American Journal, after careful investi- 
gations, gives the following as the present amount (1910) 
of British capital invested in the republics of South 
America together with the actual figures of the interest 
received in that year by British investors. Bolivia does 
not appear in the list, there being no British capital as 
yet invested there. 

Capital Interest 

Argentina £280,732,026 £13,206,149 

Brazil 140,246,278 6,990,292 

Chile 47,694,815 2,326,097 

Uruguay 44,691,257 1,904,088 

Peru 23,014,000 419,800 

Venezuela 7,148,109 186,434 

Colombia 5,826,976 202,103 

Ecuador 2,973,800 152,512 

Paraguay 2,814,780 49,555 

Totals £555,142,041 £25,437,030 

"Argentina leads easily. In the above figures banks 
and shipping are not included, as they cannot be con- 
sidered as relating to any particular country. Nearly 
one half of the total is concerned with the railways, 
about one third is concerned with the bonds of the 
various governments and municipalities, the remainder 
being invested in miscellaneous securities. 

"What percentage of this immense annual revenue is 
devoted by its recipients to the spiritual welfare of the 
lands and peoples where those dividends are earned? 
Surely those dividends bring with them a weighty re- 
sponsibility."- 

Our bankers have urged larger investments from the 
United States. And many Latin-American bankers are 
soliciting such investment. An Argentine banker 
recently visiting New York puts it this way : 



COMMERCIAL 55 

"American traders must realize that the powerful 
hold Europe has had in the past in Argentina was 
through the money invested in local industries and public 
utility companies, which naturally gave the preference 
in their orders to the country to which their directors 
and shareholders belonged. This circumstance has in 
former years told against American trade. The time 
to remedy this situation has arrived. It is here now. 

"According to my calculation, foreign capital in 
Argentina amounts to $3,000,000,000, of which almost 
half is invested in railways, 15 per cent, in mortgages, 
and the balance in land, public utilities, and pastoral 
pursuits. Much of this capital will be compulsorily with- 
drawn from Argentina, owing to the necessities of the 
situation. It is certain that the European nations will 
need their money at home, while the heavy war taxes are 
an element in the situation."^ 

But if we bind more closely the ties between Latin 
America and ourselves in this way, three responsibilities 
need to be remembered : ( i ) to invest honestly in worthy 
things; (2) to use our investments for the real economic 
advantages of Latin America; and (3) to accompany 
our investments of money with our friendship and our 
moral help. 

Taxation. The burden of taxation in the South 
American states is very uneven. In Chile it is exceed- 
ingly light, as we have seen. In Argentina it is heavier. 
In Buenos Aires there are imposts upon street-cars, 
carriages, dogs, theaters, bill-boards, billiard-halls, tele- 
graph and telephone messages, the use of spaces under 



^New York Times, April 6, 1916. 



56 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

city streets, on provisions and wagons conveying them 
about the city, pedlers, hotels, cellars, etc. But in Brazil 
the burden is heaviest of all. There are large import 
duties, and the internal revenue levies are almost crush- 
ing to industry. Everything is taxed. Even the poor 
farmer bringing his goods to market is taxed at the city 
gate or in the market. Prices in Brazil and Argentina, 
accordingly, are higher than anywhere else in South 
America, and many forms of trade are intolerably 
burdened. In Brazil especially a wise and frugal and 
honest political administration would undoubtedly re- 
sult in such an expansion of industry and commerce as 
would double the prosperity of the land. 

Immigration. The expansion of trade and prosperity 
in South America is proportionate to the introduction 
of energy and capacity and character from without. 
South American progress is not indigenous. It is im- 
ported. Those countries which have received no immi- 
gration are almost as stagnant now as they have been 
for generations. The northern and western nations, that 
is, from Venezuela around to Bolivia, together with 
Paraguay, are the backward nations. There are no rail- 
roads, no banks, no great business interests in all these 
republics which do not depend somewhere upon foreign 
character and ability. And even in Chile foreign enter- 
prise and integrity are employed in every great com- 
mercial enterprise. Even on the ships of the Chilean 
corporation, the Compania Sud-Americana de Vapores, 
all the captains and responsible officers are foreign. And 
it is the scarcity of this foreign element in all these 
lands which accounts for their backwardness. 

There has been no immigration to any but the four 



COMMERCIAL 57 

leading republics, of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uru- 
guay. In Venezuela, in 1894, the latest reliable figures 
show that there were 44,129 foreign residents, of whom 
13,179 were Spaniards, 11,081 Colombians, 6,154 British, 
3,179 Italians, 2,545 French, 962 Germans, 55 North 
Americans. In Bolivia there are only 1,441 Europeans. 
In Peru about 70,000 people enter the country annually 
and 60,000 leave, a net gain of 10,000 per annum, but 
few of them are Europeans. And yet it is the European 
and American element that is to be credited with almost 
all of Peru's commercial and industrial advancement. 
Paraguay, which claims to be able to support a popula- 
tion of 69,000,000 and has an estimated population of 
800,000, reports only 4,000 Europeans, although it en- 
courages immigration. Contrast with these lands the 
four more prosperous states. Brazil received 76,292 
colonists in 1901, while the total number who came from 
1855 to 1901 was 2,023,693. The number of immigrants 
is less now than it was twenty years ago. In 1891, due 
in part to a crisis in the Argentine which lessened the 
immigration there, 277,808 people came to Brazil, uf 
whom 116,000 were Italians. The Statesman's Year 
Book estimates that there are 1,000,000 Germans in 
Brazil, which is probably an overestimate. Sao Paulo 
is almost a foreign city, and the result is seen in its 
growth from 28,000 in 1872 to 64,000 in 1890, to 239,- 
000 in 1900, its present population being estimated at 
400,000. In Chile the number of Germans and English 
in 1907 was over 20,000, with as many Spaniards, and 
representatives of almost every other European nation- 
ality. The Argentine, which is the South American 
wonderland in wealth and development, is predominantly 



58 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

foreign. Even the Spanish element has been almost 
overmastered by the Italian, and the Italian stock has 
been a good one. Argentina is becoming a new Italy, 
while British and German capital, and, with the capital, 
men to supervise it, have been poured in like water. 
With us it is now the native stock that dominates and 
improves the imported blood. In South America the 
imported blood dominates and improves the native stock. 

Economic Value of Immigration. Students of Latin 
America's economic condition see that immigration is 
indispensable. "The only thing that can make these 
countries progress is a large white immigration," says 
Professor Ross. And Sr. Calderon points out the vital 
relation of immigration to the whole economic problem: 
"The increase of alien wealth in nations which are not 
fertilized by powerful currents of immigration cfonstitutes 
a real danger. To pay the incessantly increasing inter- 
est of the wealth borrowed, fresh sources of production 
and a constant increase of economic exchanges are 
necessary; in a word, a greater density of population. 
The exhaustion of the human stock in the debtor nations 
creates a very serious lack of financial equilibrium, which 
may result, not only in bankruptcy but also in the loss 
of political independence by annexation. The solution 
of the financial problem depends, then, upon the solution 
of the problem of population. Immigrants will solve it 
by increasing the number of productive units, by accumu- 
lating their savings, by irresistible efforts which lay the 
foimdations of solid fortunes."^ 

Already where the immigrant has come in he has 



^Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 383. 



COMMERCIAL 59 

poured fresh energy and powers into the nations and 
Hfted them from the depression of mestizo domination. 
In Argentina he is the dominant factor. He arrives as 
an artisan or trader. His son becomes a merchant or 
banker or capitaUst. In Argentina "of 1,000 inhabit- 
ants there are 128 ItaUans and only 99 Argentines who 
own land. These Latins are prolific; in 1904, 1,000 
Argentina women gave life to 80 infants; 1,000 Spanish 
women to 123; and 1,000 Italian women to 175."^ 

The statistics in the following table^ of immigration 
to Argentina were obtained from the Argentine govern- 
ment: 

Immigrants since Immigrants 
Nationality 1857 for 1912 

Italians 2,133,508 165,662 

Spanish 1,298,122 80,583 

French 206,912 5,i8o 

Russians 136,659 20,832 

Syrians and Turks 109,234 I9,792 

Austrians and Hungarians 80,736 6,545 

Germans 55,o68 4,337 

English 51,660 3,134 

Swiss 31,624 1,005 

Belgians 22,186 405 

Portuguese 21,378 4,959 

Danes 7,686 1,316 

Dutch 7,120 274 

North Americans 5,S09 499 

Swedes 1,702 94 

Other Nations 79,251 8,786 



Totals 4,248,355 323,403 

Does Latin America have moral and spiritual forces 
adequate to the assimilation and education of this immi- 
gration? And is Latin America likely to be able to 

^ Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 364. 
^Koebel, The South Americans, 16, 17. 



6o THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

secure an adequate increase? And even if it is, will the 
lands that need it most be able to secure any part of it? 

Agriculture and Manufacture. It is in these things 
that Latin America chiefly needs development. It has 
been agriculture which has given Argentina its great 
wealth. But in most of the other Latin- American lands 
agriculture is pitifully undeveloped or perverted. In 
Chile what were fine wheat lands are now devoted to 
wine production. In Brazil, apart from coffee, there 
has been little development, and the rubber industry is 
unscientifically conducted. Comprehensive and com- 
petent plans of agricultural education and development 
are indispensable. And small landownership must be 
encouraged. The system of immense properties, farmed 
by peon labor and profiting an absentee landlord class, 
which has ruined Mexico, is growing in Chile, and in 
Argentina the total number of landholdings is only 227,- 
000, of which 1,000 are above 125,000 acres each, and 
9,233 above 6,250 acres. On the other hand in Argen- 
tina one fifth of all the holdings are in small lots of less 
than 25 acres. 

Manufactures are few in Latin America. Almost 
everything is imported except the articles of house-manu- 
facture, and importations are steadily cutting in upon 
these. 

Latin America needs sound, internal economic develop- 
ment, and to that end three things are absolutely indis- 
pensable — immigration, education, and the influence of 
sound and real religion. In some of these things we can 
help Latin America and we shall ourselves be helped. 
And trade connections should minister to these higher 
interests. The United States Commissioner of Educa- 



COMMERCIAL 6i 

tion, in transmitting to the Secretary of the Interior Dr. 
Brandon's admirable review of "Latin American Uni- 
versities and Special Schools," said: ''the value of com- 
mercial relations, . . . the exchange of ideas, the feel- 
ing of interdependence, the sentiments of friendship, 
f ellov^ship, and brotherhood, and the broader outlook and 
fuller and richer life which come to the people of both 
countries are, or should be, no less important than the 
exchange of the products of mines, fields, forests, and 
factories, and the material wealth gained thereby."^ 

North America's Obligation. Mere commercial 
relations have far less enlightening and uniting power 
than men once supposed they possessed. Apparently 
flourishing trade may rest upon false economic founda- 
tions and work moral destruction. Purchasing power 
acquired by borrowing money and exercised to the eco- 
nomic debilitation of the purchaser cannot be long ad- 
vantageous either to the buyer or to the seller. Good 
trade needs to rest on a sound moral basis, to minister 
to the development in thought and industry and charac- 
ter of all engaged in it, to strengthen good government, 
to support just taxation, to procure the wise develop- 
ment and expenditure of natural resources, to promote 
international confidence and good feeling, to advance 
the well-being of all mankind. The Christian mind is 
fundamentally essential to the right development of 
world trade and world wealth. We do ourselves and 
Latin America and humanity a deep wrong if we do not 
bring commercial relations with our Southern neighbors 
under that mind. 



^United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1912, No. 30, 7. 



Ill 

EDUCATIONAL 

"The educational traditions of Latin Europe," says the 
Report of Commission III on Education, to the Con- 
gress on Christian Work in Latin America, "differed 
from those of northern Europe in that the formal edu- 
cation of the schools was considered of importance only 
for the limited few. This favored class included those 
possessing superior intellectual ability or force of charac- 
ter and those with social position and influence. The 
masses of the people might have their education, but it 
was of and through the church and the home, not the 
school. This tradition Latin America took over and pre- 
served well into the nineteenth century. Indeed, this 
view is even yet maintained in most if not in all of her 
countries by influential portions of society. On the other 
hand, it is to be noted that the state school system was 
founded by the Latin-American republics quite as early 
as it was in most of the commonwealths of the North 
American Union — aside from those of New England — 
and earlier than in many of the European countries. The 
development of these public school systems, however, 
has been very slow; and there is now an illiterate popu- 
lation varying from forty to eighty per cent. This re- 
tarded development is partly explained by the traditional 
disbelief of the Latin population in the scholastic educa- 
tion of the masses; partly by the attitude of the church; 
partly by the same factors that caused a slow develop- 

63 



^ Tim IXirV Ol' VUV \M\KW\\< 

ment in Anglo-Saxon America — vast tt^rritory^ jj^jvar^e 
lH>|n\ti\tkvn» divei^c racial clci\\cnt.<, the l\ai\lshiiK>i of 
inouiH^r HtV. awd the pniual wcccsj^ilY of cv^n^vicritv^^ the 
uatvu^l cuviivunient. A further exi^lanation of this be- 
latcvl cvlucatiowal dcvcUnnxicnt iv< fovu\d in the gi*eater 
innver of race aj>.<iu\Uaiion of the Iheriau i^v^^les as 
cmui^rtxi with the Atv^io-Saxvms. A more houxv^^neinis 
|x^pulatiot\ has thus l>eet\ pi\Hhic<\l u\ vanous areas, but 
at the s;KM'it\ce of certaiu traits aud essetuials of mass 
advancement**** 

ri\c Bcdesiastical Universities. In his admirable re- 
j[K»rt on Latin- American unix-ersities. Dr. Kvl^^ar IC, Bi^n- 
dotv gives an acciHU\t of the fvn\x\dation aud charactt^r of 
the institutions of hi^^xer lei\ruit\g which wel^:^ estab- 
Ushevl at the outset of the Sj^anish occu^Kxtion f^^r the 
ti^inin§i^ of the leadet^ of society. 'The S|\u\ish settle- 
ments in America.'' sa\^ he. ''w^re pawidevl with the 
means of hig1\er evlucation with celerity ev^ual tv> if not 
^it-eater thait that shown in the Kn^i^ish cv^lot\ies. tu less 
than a half ceutury fi\xu\ the date of the tii^t i^nxiauetit 
settlement, sclux^ls for advaucevl evlucation. as evlucation 
was then i-e^^alevl. had l>eeu establishevl it\ due and 
|H>nuanent fvuin. aud by the end of the ceutury thei^ 
existevl a chain of cv^Ueges or universities e\tei\ding fmm 
Mexicv> and the \\ est Indies K> the southenuuost cv>louy 
of Ai^^ntina. From that time tv> the inxseut. S(\\nish 
Amenca has l>eeu sealous in the establishmetxt of in- 
$titutiot»< ^ • ^'aittittg in the lil^eral profess^ionis, and dut^ 



I'.DIK'A ri( )NAI, 65 

ill!; \\\c |).isl (('iitiii\^ Toi I tii;ii(>:u* AnicricM li.is l^rpl \y,\cc 
w il Ii Iicr lU'ij'Jilior." 

riio (l.'ilcs of llic ('s(;il)lisliiiuMil of (lioso coloni.-il tini- 
voisitios wore: Moxioo ;iii(l LiniM, 1551 ; Suiilo l)()iniiip;(), 
1558; B()|^'()(a, 1572; C<)i(l(»l>.i. i(»i.^; Sucre, i(»..\\; (Itialc- 
ni.iln. nhoiil K>75 : Cuzcd, 1692; Caracis, 1721 ; Saiiliaj^o 
(ic ('iiil(\ \y^><; ll.ivaiia, 1782 ; Quito, T787. 

" Tlic (luncli \\;is llic prime mover in llieir osla1)lish- 
nuMil, .illlioti^li iiilliKMilial laytruMi lioldin)^' lii^'li political 
posiiidiis eotilrihiilcd nolahly to llioir fotindalioii. The 
principal tilijccl of (".icli iiiiivcrsilv vvas lo proiiiole llio. 
cause of reli.^ion in llie colonies by pi'ovidin!'; .111 (mIii 
c.iled ("leri^'v ntniierons enoni;li lo v.wc for lli(> ^;piiiln;d 
wclfiitc (d" llic selllci;; ;iiid lo finllicr llic work of eVtin- 
i;cIi/;ilion ;nnonj; liu' natives. Tiie eenlral departiricnt 
of llie inslilnlion vvas llic faculty of lelleis and pliiloso- 
plM', llironjdi wITu II .ill slndenp; iiiiisl p.i.;; on llicir way 
lo llie professional S( liool;;. '\\\c laller were cxcced- 
injdy liniiled in llie colonial nniv(Msily. Tlicre waS a 
<lepailnienl of ri\il and < anon law. bill llie former was 
ovc'ishadovved in llic ec elesiasru al or!',ani/al ion of llio 
inslilnlion, and liad lo awail IIk* era of nalional inde- 
pendence before eoinin:; lo ils own. Tlie imiversily 
nsnalh^ conlaincd a piofessorsliip of medicine, hnl prior 
lo lli(> ninelcenlli (■ciilniy il was llie medicine of llie 
medieval school incn, a( adcniic and empirical. M'he one 
professional school Ihal llonrished was the faculty of 
Iheoloij^y. It was for il lhal llie university was created, 
and lo il le(l all academic a\'ennes. 

"Clerical in ils ori.^in and pur[)ose, the colonial uni- 
versity was also clerical in its f^overnment. Theoretically 
Ihe corporalion eiijo3'ed larjH- anlonomy, since it formu- 



66 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

lated its rules and regulations, chose its officers, and 
selected professors for vacant chairs. But this autonomy 
was largely illusory. The professors were almost ex- 
clusively members of the priesthood, and as such owed 
implicit obedience to the bishop, and, in addition, the 
election of officers and new professors required the 
confirmation of the prelate. University autonomy was, 
therefore, carefully circumscribed by church preroga- 
tive, and this equivocal form of government has been 
transmitted with little change to modern times, except 
that the state has taken the place of the church,"^ all 
these universities being now state institutions. 

The Secular Universities. A second group of insti- 
tutions originated in the era of national independence. 
The greatest of these is the University of Buenos Aires. 
In the university establishments of this period, "the 
church had no part, at least not as an organization. It 
was to secular influence that the universities and pro- 
fessional schools of the early part of the nineteenth cen- 
tury owe their existence, and from the first they have 
depended upon civil authority, either local or national. 
In this same, period the old universities were taken over 
more or less completely by the state, and in many added 
importance was at once given to the subjects of medicine 
and civil law. By their break with the mother country 
the Spanish states were thrown upon their own resources 
in matters educational. The continuous stream of gov- 
ernors, judges, administrators, and physicians that had 
flowed for three centuries from the metropolis into the 
colonies was suddenly arrested. The supply must here- 

^ United States Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1912, No. 30, 
II, 12, 



EDUCATIONAL 67 

after come from native sources. Moreover, in the flush 
of newborn independence there was engendered an in- 
tense feeHng of local pride and a determination to be- 
come self-sufficient in culture as well as in politics. The 
rapid extension of law schools, the increased importance 
ascribed to this branch of study in the older universities, 
and the dominant position it has ever since held in the 
Spanish- American university, is in great measure the 
result of influence that gathered and pressed upon the 
public consciousness in those early years of national in- 
dependence. Society was to be reconstituted, a govern- 
ment to be organized, colonial thraldom to be replaced 
by ci^il and political liberty. \\'hat nobler mission for 
the sons of a new commonwealth than to prepare them- 
selves by a study of jurisprudence and political sciences 
for their countr}^'s service ! While ancient principles of 
law still subsisted and court procedure remained much 
the same, new codes were made in the several states and 
republican ideals were substituted for monarchical tradi- 
tions. It was absolutely necessar}^ for the young re- 
publics to train their lawgivers, jurists, and public officials 
in the atmosphere of democratic institutions. National 
self-preservation demanded national schools of juris- 
prudence. GDnsequently, in the old universities, as well 
as in the newly created ones, the faculty of law and 
political sciences assumed such importance that it soon 
overshadowed the other faculties and came to be con- 
sidered by far the most important department of higher 
education. 

"The deflnitive organization of the medical faculty as 
a distinct department of the universit}' dates also from 
the same period as that of law\ It has been stated that 



68 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

the schools of Rio de Janeiro and Bahia were founded 
in 1808. The medical faculty of Guatemala places its 
beginning in the year 1804, Lima considers 181 1 the date 
of its final organization, and Caracas counts from the 
revised statutes of the university in 1826. In Buenos 
Aires a school of medicine was founded in 1801 and en- 
larged in 18 1 3. In 182 1 it amalgamated with the new- 
university. Political independence did not have the 
same overwhelming influence on medical studies that 
it did on the study of law, but separation from the mother 
country could not fail to encourage the development of 
local institutions in a subject so important as that of 
medicine." 

Scientific faculties were soon developed also. Their 
origin, Dr. Brandon says, "owes nothing to political or 
national development, but is rather to be traced to the 
academic influence of the Encyclopedistes of France, 
who urged the importance of mathematical and scientific 
studies, and whose ideas were in great part incorporated 
into the French system of education under the First 
Republic, to be imitated later in the Spanish republics of 
America. In fact, it may be affirmed that the dominant 
influence in the educational life of Latin-American coun- 
tries since their emancipation, as well as in their social 
and political life, has been French and not Spanish." 

A third group of higher institutions, founded more 
recently, owes its origin to various circumstances. "The 
University of Montevideo, beginning with a law school 
in 1849, marks the final crystallization of Uruguayan 
nationality." Many provincial or state professional 
schools have developed. This has been the tendency in- 
stead of a nationalizing policy, whereas the need in some 



EDUCATIONAL 69 

sections would seem to be now for international uni- 
versities. For example, in Central America, Dr. Bran- 
don says, "no one of the five small republics is populous 
enough or rich enough to maintain a complete first-class 
university. A solution of the problem of higher educa- 
tion there might be found in the reestablishment of the 
old federation and the exercise of the policy of distribut- 
ing the various branches of the federal government among 
the states in order to allay local jealousies, as has 
recently been done so successfully in British South 
Africa."! 

Latin-American Universities Unlike Those of the 
United States. The report of the Panama Congress 
Commission on Education calls attention to several points 
of differentiation between the universities of Latin Amer- 
ica and the United States and Canada. 

( 1 ) The former, with a few exceptions, are composed 
of professional faculties only. There is nothing cor- 
responding to the North American college. To compen- 
sate, the curricula of the professional faculties are much 
broader than those of professional schools in the United 
States, and the theoretical length of their courses is often 
six or even seven years. 

(2) The Latin- American universities have generally 
no physical unity. As there are only diverse professional 
faculties no central plant is required. 

(3) There is no permanent, professional teac-hing 
staff. The faculties are composed of professional men 
who give a small part of their time to lectures. "This 
scheme has certain advantages. It keeps the instruction 

^ United States Bureau of Education* Bulletin, 1912, No. 30, 
13-15, 18. 



70 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

in close touch with the actual problems and interests of 
life. It brings the student into familiar contact with the 
actual practitioner of his profession. It freshens and 
vivifies the instruction. But it misses all of those in- 
direct and subsidiary advantages of the college and uni- 
versity life which are most significant for the American 
or the English boy." 

(4) There is little or no university organisation or 
machinery. 

(5) "The Latin- American universities possess a dis- 
tinct advantage over similar institutions in the United 
States in that they form the sole gateway to the profes- 
sions. The various professional schools not only have 
the duty of training for the practise of the profession, 
but as administrative departments of the governments, 
they are charged with licensing practitioners in the 
various lines." 

(6) The Latin- American universities are controlled 
and conducted by the state. "The minister of education 
has immediate control. Appointments are often if not 
usually made directly by the executive head of the gov- 
ernment. Such appointments include all lectureships, 
the few administrative officers, and even the most menial 
assistant. The state also controls the curriculum; it is 
responsible, so far as responsibility exists, for the living 
conditions and the conduct of the students as well as for 
the physical plant and its upkeep. This also explains 
the fact that whatever influence the student body has in 
the way of control is exerted through public or political 
agitation and directly upon the government. Thus 
student demonstration or agitation concerning political 
and religious matters is the chief occasion for the expres- 



EDUCATIONAL . 71 

sion of opinion or the exercise of influence by the student 
body." 

(7) "As a consequence of all these features, there 
results one final characteristic of the Latin-American 
institutions, viz., that there is no unified student life. 
There is no campus, no dormitory, no class organization, 
no faculty. There are few common student interests, 
and students have no means of exercising any control 
over the university life."^ 

Prestige of the Universities. The Latin-American 
nations hold their universities and university degrees in 
the highest honor. Dr. Brandon says: 'The rapidly 
increasing enrolment in institutions of higher learning 
is a phenomenon as striking in several countries of Latin 
America as it is in the United States. The only differ- 
ence is that in the latter country the faculty of letters, 
philosophy, and pure science shares in the increase, while 
in the former the drift is wholly toward the professional 
faculties. Chile, with a population of only 3,000,000, 
enrolls annually almost 2,000 students in the national 
university and upward of 700 in the Catholic university, 
a gain of 50 per cent, in a decade. Argentina, with a 
population of 7,500,000, enrolls in her four universities 
7,000 students, of whom about 5,000 are matriculated 
in the University of Buenos Aires alone. A quarter of 
a century ago the total university population was less 
than 800 and the enrolment at Buenos Aires 600. At 
Lima there are 1,100 students in the university and in 
the detached schools of engineering and agriculture, 
while the three provincial universities of Peru add about 



^Report of Commission III to the Panama Congress, I3-I5- 



y2 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

400 more. In Brazil the number of law and medical 
students is disproportionately large, and the government 
is seeking some practicable method of checking the con- 
stant increase. . . . Other Latin- American nations in 
proportion to their population show a large student 
enrolment, and the number is everywhere a surprise 
when one considers the economic, social, and racial dis- 
advantages under which some countries labor.''^ 

11. Secondary Education 

"The secondary schools," called liceos or colegios, 
says the Panama Congress Report, "form the most im- 
portant and most flourishing part of the educational 
system of all Latin- American countries. Being the sole 
gateway to the universities and to the professions, and 
especially adapted to the interests and needs of the rul- 
ing classes, they are the objects of peculiar interest to 
both state and church, by which they are generously 
supported. Additional reasons for their importance are 
to be found also in "the indifferent and~ undeveloped 
character of elementary schools; in the diverse racial 
elements composing the population ; in the preponderance 
of the Indian and mixed races (Argentina, Chile, and 
Uruguay excepted) ; in the aristocratic structure of 
society and the aristocratic character of education." The 
secondary schools are state-administered like the uni- 
versities. They are not directly related to the elementary 
schools. There are more permanent regular teachers 
than in the universities. The course is six years. 

Comparison with the United States. "In comparison 

^ United States Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1912, No. 30, 
21. 



EDUCATIONAL 73 

with the secondary programs of the United States the 
following points may again be emphasized: (i) slight 
attention given to the classics; (2) greater time given 
to the national language and literature; (3) great em- 
phasis on modern languages ; (4) the presence of philoso- 
phy, logic, psychology, ethics, and sociology; (5) similar 
attention to drawing, geography, and military exercises." 
"The age of the liceo graduate," says Dr. Brandon, "is 
about the same as that of the American boy when he 
finishes the high school. The Latin American is per- 
haps superior in breadth of vision, cosmopolitan sym- 
pathy, power of expression, and argumentative ability, 
but, on the other hand, perhaps inferior in the powers 
of analysis and initiative and in the spirit of self-re- 
liance."^ 

Secondary School Attendance. As the proportion of 
university students is high, so, to our view, the propor- 
tion of secondary school students is very low. Colombia, 
with a population of 4,000,000, reports, says Professor 
Ross, "229 schools (colegios or liceos) with an attend- 
ance of 19,000. Two thousand lads are studying in 
Ecuador in 19 such schools. Peru has 27 state colegios 
with, an attendance of 2,000 and enough private colegios 
— most of them belonging to religious orders — to round 
out the number to 50. Bolivia has 14 such schools — 8 
of them government institutions — with 1,800 pupils. 
Chile has 61 government colegios, two thirds of them 
for boys, and subsidizes 67 private secondary schools. 
Argentina records 28 national colegios with an attend- 
ance of 8,000. Her number of secondary pupils alto- 



Report of Commission III to the Panama Congress, 16, 18, 19. 



74 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

gether does not exceed 15,000. Such a proportion is 
amazingly low. In Salta, a province of 160,000, only 339 
persons are in high school. In Rosario, a city as big as 
St. Paul, there is one national high school with 450 
students. Pennsylvania, with about the same population 
as Argentina, has six times as many pupils in her high 
schools, although the number of years is four as against 
six for the colegios of the southern republic. 

Obstacles to Secondary Education. "The public high 
school is obliged to make its way against the opposition 
of pay schools, some of them with a strong commercial 
bent like our 'business colleges,' others maintained by the 
teaching orders — Jesuits, Salesians, Dominicans, Merce- 
darians. Sacred Heart or Christian Brothers — and 
favored by the wealthy either as more religious or more 
exclusive than the free public high schools. The high 
school, moreover, is not, as with us, the people's college. 
It is a fitting school for the university and the profes- 
sional schools. Eighty per cent, of its graduates go on to 
pursue higher studies. It belongs, therefore, on the whole 
to the upper class, while the great bulk of the people 
never aspire to advance their children beyond the ele- 
mentary school. There is a deep gulf between the two 
grades of education and between the teachers of the two 
grades, so that both pupils and teachers are drawn from 
different social classes."^ 

III. Elementary Education 

"The elementary school," says the Panama Congress 
Report, "is the least developed part of the educational 



^ South of Panama, 286. 



EDUCATIONAL 75 

system of Latin America. This fact explains many of 
the poHtical, social, and intellectual conditions in these 
countries. But the educational situation is in turn ex- 
plained by the political and social conditions, to which 
should be added the influence of natural environment and 
of historical tradition." And the report proceeds to 
state some of the elements of the situation which affect 
the work of elementar}' schools. 

(i) Racial elements. "The jxjpulations of no other 
coimtries of modem civilization have racial elements so 
diverse as those of the Latin-American republics, and 
there are none in which the backward races are so numer- 
ous. 

(2) "Even v.'ith a homogeneous racial composition, 
sparse settlements and vast extent of territory may 
make imiversal education well-nigh impossible. In many 
regions of agricultural Argentina, with its white popula- 
tion, one hundred square miles would not furnish the 
children for a school." 

(3) Class organization and social traditions. ''Both 
of these factors ox-^erate against a ijoijuIslt elementary 
school system. Where such schools exist the}^ are seldom 
attended by children of the influential and better-to-do 
classes. 

"The traditions of the Latin races have few of the 
democratic elements common to the Anglo-Saxons of the 
north, out of which grew the common school system. 
The public elementary school system of Latin America 
was an imix)rtation, the work of the political and revolu- 
tionar>' idealists influential during different i)eriods of the 
nineteenth century. . . . The temporar>^ economic in- 
terests of the classes are not conser\-ed by popular educa- 



76 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

tion, while the masses do not have and could not be 
expected to have an interest in popular education or an 
appreciation of its value. Such public mass education 
as they have must come as a gift of the enlightened few. 

''This characterization is true when viewed by the 
Anglo-Saxon. A truer statement, no doubt, is that there 
is a type of democracy which is Anglo-Saxon and a type 
which is Latin. Each possesses factors which the other 
lacks." 

(4) Attitude of the Roman Church and of the clergy. 
In few countries does the Roman Catholic Church retain 
so great a political influence over the government and 
over the ruling classes in society as in Latin America, 
and in few do the governments so protect the church. 
"This remains true notwithstanding the facts that in 
several the church has been disestablished, that in nearly 
all, the schools have been taken from the control of the 
church, that in some no religious instruction whatever is 
allowed in the schools, and that in all a large class of 'in- 
tellectuals' of great political and social influence is irrev- 
ocably committed to hostility to the church. Previous 
to the establishment of the republican form of govern- 
ment in the first half of the nineteenth century (except 
in Brazil), the church controlled all education. For the 
masses it provided for education in religious, ceremonial, 
and catechetical instruction, with industrial training for 
very limited regions and groups. At the present time the 
church believes in little if any more for the masses. 
Literary education will be of no advantage to them, it 
believes, and may be of very great disadvantage — as 
witness the intellectuals. Hence on the part of the most 
powerful social institution there is indifference at best 



EDUCATIONAL 'jy 

and often active hostility to public elementary education. 
This situation is rendered no less acute by the fact that 
the church still remains powerful in the public school 
system, controlling it in countries like Colombia and 
Ecuador. Practically all the countries allow religious 
instruction in the public schools by the established or 
dominant church. Of the three countries most advanced 
in public education Chile commands such religious in- 
struction in the public schools, Argentina permits it, 
Brazil alone forbids it."^ 

The facts with regard to the relation of the church to 
the state and education may be briefly summarized as 
follows : 

Roman Catholicism is the state religion or enjoys 
state support in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, 
Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Salva- 
dor, and Haiti. In these republics there are varying 
degrees of religious instruction, Chile and Colombia mak- 
ing it compulsory in the public schools ; Bolivia, Ecuador, 
Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and 
Haiti making it optional or requiring study of the cate- 
chism. In Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia secondary 
education practically belongs to the church. 

In Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, 
Panama, Porto Rico, and Cuba there is entire separation 
of state and church. Religious instruction is not per- 
mitted in the schools, except that it is optional in Panama 
and in various parishes in Cuba. 

(5) Illiteracy. These factors help to explain the 
neglect of popular elementary education in Latin Amer- 



^Report of Commission III to the Panama Congress, 19-21. 



78 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

ica. And that neglect and the reasons for it are responsi- 
ble for the dead weight of illiteracy and ignorance which 
the Latin-American republics have to carry and which 
retard and depress their life and progress. There is no 
escaping the facts. The Boston Pilot (September 6, 
1913) says in an editorial entitled "Slanderers," "The 
percentage of illiteracy [in South America] is only a 
little larger than in the majority of the states of North 
America." On the contrary, the largest percentage of 
illiteracy in the United States is in Louisiana where the 
rate is 38 per cent. In Latin America the best estimates 
are : Brazil, 71 per cent. ; Argentina, 50 per cent, of per- 
sons six years of age and older ; Chile, 63 per cent. ; 
Colombia, 80 per cent. ; Uruguay, 40 per cent, of persons 
six years of age and older; and Mexico, 63 per cent, of 
persons over 12. 

Marrion Wilcox, a friend and student of the Latin- 
American people, writes frankly, "One is obliged to 
concur in the judgment of the Latin Americans them- 
selves who admit that it [education] is neglected. While 
it is true that in most of the countries attendance at 
school is compulsory, none of the governments enforce 
the law in this respect owing to the lack of funds. The 
percentage of school attendance based on the population 
is as follows: Argentina, 10; Uruguay, 7; Chile, 3.7; 
Paraguay, 3.5; Peru, 2.36; Brazil, 2; Bolivia, 2."^ 

The issue of June 23, 1909, of O Estado de Sao Paulo, 
the leading newspaper in Sao Paulo, contained a letter 
from a correspondent bemoaning the delinquency of Brazil 
in the education of her people. In Brazil, he said, only 



^ The Student World, January, 1909, 5. 



EDUCATIONAL 79 

28 out of each 1,000 of the population were in school; 
in Paraguay, 47 ; in Chile, 53 ; in Uruguay, 79 ; in Argen- 
tina, 96. In the Argentine, out of a population (then) 
of 6,200,000, 597,203 or 9.632 per cent, were in school; 
in Brazil, out of 19,910,646 (his figures) only 565,942 or 
2.842 per cent. In the United States, 19 per cent, of the 
entire population are in school; in Germany, over 16 
per cent. ; in Japan, over 12 per cent. In other words, 
about four times as large a proportion of the American 
population are in school as of the entire population of 
South America. Latin America has no greater social 
need than the education of the masses of the people. Re- 
publics cannot be built upon illiteracy, and the hopeful 
nations of the South are paralyzed in their highest 
progress by the dead weight of ignorance which clogs 
their every step. The Mexico of to-day could never 
have been had the common people been educated. 

IV. Educational Needs 

I. Thoroughness. There is much good work done in 
higher institutions, and in some countries like Chile and 
Argentina, in lower schools also, but the educational 
system is top-heavy and as Sr. Nelson of Argentina says, 
"theoretical." Much work is showy rather than solid 
and real. All this is part of the situation to be met. 
Mr. Wilcox says: 'Tt is absolutely necessary to realize 
certain characteristics of the Latin- American mind in 
order to understand present conditions in education in 
South America. In these matters, our friends in the 
Southern republics are not self-reliant but dependent, 
and their attainments are apt to be showy rather than 
substantial. They themselves characterize their enthu- 



8o T^E UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

siasms as 'fire in straw/ blazing up quickly but not usually 
supplying force for sustained effort. As for strength 
of intellectual fiber, that is always and everywhere a ques- 
tion of character. In Chile, for example, native boys 
and young Englishmen work side by side in the same busi- 
ness houses. The former quite outstrip the latter, show- 
ing more ability while they are still quite young, but fall- 
ing behind in the long race simply because they have not 
learned lessons of self-reliance and self-control. When 
a solid foundation of good habits shall take the place of 
irregularity, self-indulgence, and the vices that are too 
often acquired in the South American home and school, 
the latent talent of these peoples will command world 
wide attention."! 

At the same time it is to be remembered that, as Mr. 
J. H. Warner of Pernambuco says of the Brazilian 
students: "We are not dealing, as some believe, with 
men of inferior intellect. In linguistic ability especially, 
it is probable that no students excel the Latins. It is no 
uncommon thing to meet an educated Brazilian audience 
which is capable of appreciating fully a literary program 
comprising, besides numbers in Portuguese, selections 
from Italian, Spanish, French, English, and German 
literature. In such an audience many are able to speak 
as well as understand several of these languages. With 
so many avenues of intercourse and such mental agility, 
it is not surprising that the Brazilian student is extremely 
sensitive to any influence that may be brought to bear 
upon him. 2 

^ The Student World, January, 1909. 

^ "Religion among Brazilian Students," The Student World, 
January, 1909. 



EDUCATIONAL 8i 

What is true of the Brazihan is true of others. The 
South American young men are quick, alert, responsive. 
They are deserving of all our friendship and assistance. 
But they need, as we do, moral bottom, character, stability 
— just the qualities which only robust, ethical, open- 
minded and fearless religious principle can give them. 

2. Modern Methods. There are three great general 
deficiencies which Professor Rowe sets forth in his paper, 
published by the United States Commissioner of Educa- 
tion, on "Educational Progress in the Argentine Republic 
and Chile :" ( i ) The "tendency to impose the same course 
of study on every boy and girl, quite irrespective of their 
taste or subsequent vocations." (2) The lack of a trained 
"corps of professional teachers for the liceos, or high 
schools." (3) The neglect of the education of women.^ 

3. Elementary Teachers. Latin America needs an 
army of trained elementary school teachers who will do 
their work in the highest spirit of patriotism and fidelity. 
And where the problem of woman's work and training 
is such a difficult problem the provision of such an army 
of teachers is no small task. Argentina and Brazil gladly 
accepted our help in it in early years. And we owe other 
Latin-American nations all the friendly aid we can give. 

4. Industrial Education. Industrial and agricultural 
education is a great need. The more progressive states 
are interested in providing such education and the Sale- 
sian Fathers have done good work in this field. It is the 
kind of education needed by the great mass of the agricul- 
tural and industrial body of the nations. 

5. Professional Training. There is need, as every- 
^Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1909, 325, 326, 

327- 



82 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

where, for more thorough and efficient normal educa- 
tion. A teacher in the state of Parana, Brazil, writes — 
and what he says is typical of education in many Latin- 
American lands: 

*T wish to speak of the tremendous educational need 
of this part of the world. The superintendent of public 
instruction says in his official report, 'We have professors 
without competence and without calling.' He speaks of 
the fact that ten years ago the law allowed most any one 
without training to teach provisionally, as this was the 
only way to get teachers. There scarcely existed trained 
teachers. These unfortunately later received regular 
appointment. They were not appointed because they 
were capable but because they were docile instruments 
of the local political machine. When the timje for exami- 
nation came no one feared that he would be turned down. 
There was a ratifying en masse of professors almost 
illiterate, except for few and honorable exceptions. The 
other day a man who was talked of in the papers as timber 
for vice-governor of the state, told me that where he 
lives a teacher drew salary continually, and for more than 
a year did not so much as open the door of the school- 
house. The teacher is politically protected. This case 
represents a large per cent, indeed of all the public em- 
ployees of this part of Brazil. The idea of a graded 
school is almost unknown here. The superintendent 
further declares, 'We have to-day in the most important 
cities of the state, schoolhouses where four independent 
schools function, each one with an excessive number of 
pupils, distributed in four classes.' It is not unusual for 
a teacher to have 50 or 60 pupils of all grades. Now 
when you remember the quality of these teachers and 



EDUCATIONAL 83 

their excessive number of pupils all thrown together (the 
classification is based on the pupils' preference of 
teacher), and the fact which our authority cites that 
there are only 20 per cent, of the children of school age 
in these inefficient schools, you get some idea of the 
educational opportunity and duty in Parana. For 120,- 
000 children there are only 504 schools. Prepared and 
efficient teachers are almost unknown. I refer, of course, 
only to this part of the country. Some states are much 
worse and some, better." 

6. Rational Attitude toward Atheism. The Rornan 
Catholic Church distrust of higher state education justi- 
fies itself by pointing to the almost universal unbelief 
among the ''intellectuals" in all the Latin-American 
nations. Mr. Charles J. Ewald of Buenos Aires writes: 

''The National University at Buenos Aires has enrolled 
over 4,000 young men of the influential classes of the 
Argentine Republic. At least half of them come from 
the smaller cities and towns and live in the boarding 
houses of the city. The atmosphere in which these 
students live is not conducive to moral vigor. There 
is every encouragement to immorality and gambling which 
are the great vices and, unfortunately, the great majority 
have no conscience on these sins. 

"As regards religion, I would say that not over 10 
per cent, of them are more than nominally identified 
with Roman Catholicism, which is the state religion. 
Another 10 per cent, takes a hostile attitude toward the 
Roman Church. This hostility does not mean, however, 
that there is any sympathy with Protestantism, in the 
best sense of that word. They are in sympathy with 
a Protestantism that protests but they have had no con- 



84 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

tact with evangelical Christianity. Christianity and 
Romanism, indeed, mean to them one and the same thing. 
The great mass of students are indifferent, never hav- 
ing given any thought to religious questions. They be- 
lieve in nothing." 1 

And Mr. Warner has set forth also from personal 
knowledge the conditions in Brazil : 

"Senhor Argymiro Galvao was at one time lecturer on 
philosophy in the law school in Sao Paulo, in many 
respects the leading law school in Brazil. One of his 
lectures, 'The Conception of God,' was published as a 
tract as late as 1906. I quote the following from the 
lecture: 'The Catholic faith is dead. There is no longer 
confidence in Christian dogma. The supernatural has 
been banished from the domain of science. The con- 
quests of philosophy have done away with the old pre- 
conception of spirituality. Astronomy, with Laplace, 
has invaded the heavenly fields and in all celestial space 
^.here has not been found a kingdom for your God. . . . 
We are in the realm of realism. The reason meditates 
not on theological principles,' but upon facts furnished 
by experience. God is a myth, he has no reality, he is 
not an object of science. . . . Man invented gods and 
God that the world might be ruled. These conceptions 
resulted from his progressive intelligence. The simple 
spirit refrains from all criticism and accepts the idea of 
God without resistance. The cultured spirit repels the 
idea in virtue of its inherent contradictions.' 

"Galvao is only one of many educators in the best 
schools of Brazil who have broken with the church, and, 



^ The Student World, January, 1909, 7, 8. 



EDUCATIONAL 85. 

of all the hundreds of students that annually sit under 
these teachings, very few could be found who would 
question the accuracy of this line of thought or seek to 
justify the Christian faith. 

"The great difficulty that confronts the laborer in this 
field is not that of tearing men away from an old faith. 
The great majority have already repudiated their old 
faith. The pity of it is that they think they have repudi- 
ated Christianity."^ 

There is urgent need of agencies which will reach 
these students with the gospel. 

7. International Cooperation. There is great need of 
educational cooperation among the Latin-American 
nations, in the study of their common problems, the pro- 
vision of text-books, the training of teachers, and the 
achievement of ideals. There is no such unity. As Dr. 
Brandon says, with regard to the need of school texts: 
"Spanish America is not one unit. On the contrary, it 
is broken up into 20 different units, widely separated as 
regards distance and more widely still as regards inter- 
communication. Difference of climate and local condi- 
tions are also important elements. National rivalries 
and animosities are causes of isolation. To a great ex- 
tent, and certainly to a greater extent than is imagined in 
North America, each state has led a separate existence. 
All have been separated from the mother country on 
account of their remoteness, lack of communication, and 
want of mutual sympathy. All have been aided in their 
material advancement by foreign capital and energy, 
but in those intellectual matters that concern the mother 



^Students and the Present Missionary Crisis, Report of the 
Rochester Student Volunteer Convention, 327f. 



86 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

tongue each nation has been forced to march alone. All 
this has constituted a serious handicap in the matter 
of school texts. 

*Tf the entire Spanish-speaking world with its 75,000,- 
000 inhabitants formed an intellectual unit, it would 
provide a public that would appeal to talent and to the 
publishing industries. If even the Spanish- American 
countries, with their more than 50,000,000, formed such 
a unit, the incentive would be all-powerful. . . . 

/'Another method, however, would be an easier, more 
logical, more rapid, and more patriotic solution of the 
difficulty, viz., an intellectual union, not official, but 
based entirely on intellectual sympathy, between the 
various Spanish-speaking communities. Such a move- 
ment will come sooner or later. Already there are signs 
of its advent. Recent years have witnessed a decided 
rapprochement between Spain and the Spanish repub- 
lics. The intellectual life of the two branches of the 
Spanish family has everything to gain in this tendency, 
and the schools would be among the first to profit. The 
softening of national asperities in Spanish America, the 
advance in means of rapid intercommunication, and the 
remarkable enthusiasm in favor of education, now so 
noticeable in almost all nations, will undoubtedly bring 
about a community of interest in intellectual matters." 

But Dr. Brandon recognizes that "there are two serious 
obstacles to an early consummation of this program: 
first, the bitter hostility existing between some countries 
on account of acute boundary disputes; second, the fact 
that the most progressive nations in matters of general 
education are at the two extremities of the long stretch 
of Spanish-speaking territory that extends from the 



EDUCATIONAL 87 

islands and the Rio Grande on the north to Cape Horn. 
However, several boundary disputes as threatening as 
any that remain have been settled amicably in recent 
years ; more accurate geographical knowledge will make 
some others easier of sokition ; and the nations are learn- 
ing that the surest aggrandizement will come through 
internal development and the universal education of their 
population."^ 

8. The Press. One of the greatest educational 
agencies in Latin America is the press. Its influence 
would be still greater if the percentage of literacy could 
be increased. And no force at work in these lands ought 
more zealously to strive for popular education. Some of 
the best papers published on the western hemisphere are 
issued in Latin America, papers like the Jornal do 
Comercio of Rio, La Prensa -of Buenos Aires and El 
Mer curio of Santiago. And many of the Latin- American 
republics encourage reading and printing by carrying all 
printed matter free in the mails. 

9. Literature. The problem of clean, helpful litera- 
ture is one of the most pressing problems in Latin Amer- 
ica. *'01d Spain," says Lord Bryce, "never supplied to 
her colonies through books anything approaching the 
volume of that perennial stream of instruction and stimu- 
lation which English-speaking writers have for nearly 
four centuries supplied to those who can read English 
all over the world, and which France has likewise sup- 
plied to all who can read her language. In South 
America, men now learn French in increasing numbers, 



^ United States Bu-reau of Education Bulletin, 1912, No. 30, 
141-143. 



88 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

but they are still a small percentage of the educated popu- 
lation of Spanish America."^ 

Dr. Brandon says that probably more than half of 
the books in the university medical libraries are French. 
And the book stalls are full of French fiction. This 
fiction is of the most pernicious character and the tone 
of too much Latin-American literary production in 
Spanish during the nineteenth century is set forth by 
Sr. Calderon. Among its notes as he describes them, 
some of the most frequent phrases are : "restless passion," 
"the intoxicating sensuality of the tropics," "the melan- 
choly of the flesh." Dario's verse possesses "the sensu- 
ality of a faun." Ricardo Palma "has described in a 
sumptuous style the life of all Spanish colonies, devout 
and sensual," with subtle irony and in "joyous and some- 
what licentious narrative." The tone of "decadent art" 
prevails. This is Calderon's representation. It is obvious 
that the Latin Americans like ourselves have war to wage 
against the processes of rot and defilement which operate 
through literature. Not only do more Latin-American 
people need to read but they want a greater abundance of 
clean and wholesome popular literature. 

lo. Ideals. Throughout the Latin-American. nations 
there are earnest and able men who never for a moment 
relinquish the highest intellectual and moral ideals for 
their people. Surely these men have a right to look for 
sympathy and cooperation to the men of Canada and 
the United States who cannot sustain political and com- 
mercial relations to Latin America without increased 
responsibility also for its moral and intellectual advance- 
ment. 



^ South America: Observations and Impressions, S7^- 



IV 
RELIGIOUS 

The best setting forth of the missionary service which 
the churches of the United States and Canada can and 
ought to render in Latin America, and of the manner 
and spirit in which this service should be extended is 
found in the Report of Commission I on Survey and 
Occupation, and the Report of Commission II on Mes- 
sage and Method, presented at the Congress on Chris- 
tian Work in Latin America, held at Panama in Febru- 
ary, 191 6. 

The Report of Commission I dealt first with "The 
Significance of Latin America to the Life of the World," 
"i. In respect to culture ; 2. In natural material resources ; 
3. In domiciling now overcrowded populations ; 4. As 
the seat of rising democracies; 5. In the formation of a 
new world race or races." The report then proceeded to 
consider 

I. The Claims of Present-Day Latin America on the 

Message and Service of Evangelical Christians 

AND Churches. 

We cannot do better in this chapter than summarize 
and make available for the men taking these studies the 
material of this Report. What are these claims? 

I. Arising from Immigration and Commerce. The 
facts as to immigration and trade have already been pre- 

89 



90 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

sented. What moral and religious obligations do they 
entail ? 

"One of the frightful costs of migration the world over 
relates to the field of morals and religion. If it be some- 
times pointed out that a weakness of organized Chris- 
tianity is exposed by the faithlessness of adherents when 
away from its authority and conventions, the remedy is 
not the abandonment of institutions, ordinances, in- 
struction and worship, but the paralleling of immigrants 
to the ends of the earth with the forms and spirit of 
Christianity which at home held and inspired them. 

"This is the place to pay tribute to the many faithful 
men and women from foreign lands who are proving in 
Latin America that their morals and faith are real and 
abiding and not the creatures of custom, climate or 
convenience. Nothing less than glorious are the pure 
domestic circles, the family altars, the volunteer Sunday- 
schools, the unshakable business integrity, the dignified 
and kindly consideration of employees and business 
associates which mark here and there souls, who, like 
Abraham, left not God when they journeyed to the lands 
of strangers. Full recognition must likewise be given to 
the number and strength of the temptations that over- 
whelm the weaker and less faithful. All the evils of the 
lands they left came along with them or preceded them. 
Everywhere the evils of a new land are more in evidence 
and aggressive than are the good and restraining influ- 
ences. In actual isolation of camp, mine, or mill, or in 
the yet more demoralizing loneliness of a great alien city, 
away from home, where no one that counts with them 
will know and where nobody seems to care — this is the 
stage on which are enacted the moral tragedies of coloni- 



RELIGIOUS 91 

zation and commerce. It is national material enrichment 
at the price of national character, for the stream swirls 
back and bears homeward the worst it found and helped 
to create. 

"The continent of Europe and the Anglo-Saxon race 
have a plain duty to discharge in respect to the moral 
welfare of Latin America. They have undoubtedly con- 
ferred certain great blessings, freely and gratefully ac- 
knowledged by the beneficiaries." 

Moral Consequence of Immigration. "It is more need- 
ful here to recount the liabilities of the foreign impact 
upon these populations. The scholarship of Europe, 
notably France, in liberating the mind has maimed the 
faith of thinking Latin America. The intemperance of 
the west coast of South America and of Central America 
is not entirely Latin or Indian, but partly foreign in 
origin. Some of it represents white men with fire-water 
repeating North America's ravaging of the Indians. . . . 
The sordid commercial standards which too many foreign 
business men have adopted will serve long to keep humble 
and silent their observing and untempted fellow nationals. 
If bribes have been taken by Latins they have been given 
often by foreigners. Where industrial injustice is en- 
trenched many representatives of foreign capital also 
complacently profit by it. 

"Whom does all this concern in the home lands from 
which these destructive influences come? Surely all 
men who love fairness and to whom this knowledge 
comes. The situation presents a familiar phenomenon 
of the modern world wherever there are confluent civili- 
zations interacting on each other through the contacts 
of trade, ideas, institutions, habits, and personalities. The 



92 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS \ 

closer relationships are not to be condemned or deplored. 
They are inevitable and will be multiplied and cemented 
by mutual consent. The duty of Christians is to abate 
the attendant evils. Common honor demands that wher- 
ever one race destroys character in another, it shall seek 
to upbuild. Where one's countrymen exploit he must 
serve. The materials of one society are bestowed upon 
another for loss, not gain, if in the process the spirit 
and inner life be withheld. The character-building forces 
of nations that export the products of their breweries 
and distilleries and other agencies of debauchery may 
not remain insular in their outreach. While others press 
forward with their commercialism and all its strain upon 
integrity, who that are just would withhold or give grudg- 
ingly the tested conserving processes in their possession 
by which corruptions are resisted and good reinforced? 
When neutral or evil personalities go from one people to 
another, the sending forth of a few hundreds embodying 
that nation's finest spiritual and moral sense is dictated 
by the consideration of national self-respect." 

2. Because of the Imminent Peril to Faith Among 
Entire Peoples. "The urgency in the religious condi- 
tion of Latin Americans arises out of the impending 
collapse of their traditional Christian faith and the feeble- 
ness of remedial effort. The peril is imminent, indeed 
well advanced. It is already coextensive with the in- 
tellectuals. Serious as is that fact of itself, the implica- 
tions and sequences of it are as appalling as they are 
inevitable unless arrested. Given practically universal 
unbelief as far as modern learning has proceeded ; popular 
education progressing rapidly under the stronger govern- 
ments and avowed to be the program of all the govern- 



RELIGIOUS 93 

ments ; the dominant religious leaders devoting their 
energies to impeding the irresistible currents of un- 
trammeled learning instead of Christianizing them ; given 
these, and to all Christians who know the facts and their 
significance, who care about them, and whose faith has 
life, power, and appeal to meet such a crisis, the call 
comprehends every element of obligation and immediacy. 

"The rise of modern learning in the nineteenth century 
brought a crisis upon the religious world, Christendom 
not excepted. Christian thought has been facing a new 
rationalism, materialism, and pessimism in every form of 
subtlety and virulence. In so far as the church is found 
or proves herself willing to become ethically solvent, 
politically unallianced, and intellectually honest, Christian 
faith and works are emerging more vital and more com- 
pelling, purified and fortified by the tests. Wherever 
she condones and continues disposed to cling to decadent 
morals, identifies her interests with absolutism and 
oppression, and flouts her scholars, however reverent, 
students and other possessors of the scientific spirit and 
method are either enmeshed by doubt or openly avow 
their unbelief." 

The Roman Church Static. "To maintain perspective 
here, it must be taken into account that the Roman Catho 
lie Church in Latin America profited little from the 
Reformation, being the projection of national bodies that 
reacted from the prospect of religious freedom to the 
excesses of the Inquisition. Intellectually, most of the 
clergy languish in the conceptions of the middle ages. 
Even the most moderate wing of the loyal modernist 
movement among European Roman Catholics has failed 
to gain a hearing either from laity or clergy, so that the 



94 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

thinking men are without any program to point the way 
for them to be at once Christians and yet true to the 
laws of the mind and to the accepted facts of modern 
knowledge with which their best institutions of higher 
learning are abreast. 

"Any strength, therefore, of organized Christianity in 
learned Latin America lies for the most part entirely 
outside the personal allegiances which spring from faith 
in God, the lordship and saviorhood of Jesus Christ, a 
love of the church, and the ministry to human need 
as citizens of the kingdom of God. As a political insti- 
tution, the Roman Catholic Church is generally found 
in league with what are now remnants or successors of 
the old Spanish oligarchies. In about half the republics 
this alliance is in control but is hotly contested, and 
decade by decade, with the advance of education and 
other liberal policies, it is forced to yield ground. Politi- 
cal expediency, class interest and inherited religious 
sentiment are still powerful in holding many to outward 
form and obedience after vital faith and love have de- 
parted or indeed where they never existed. Moreover, 
with the loyalty of the women generally unshaken, 
Roman Catholicism remains the axis on which turns the 
elite social order in most of the countries. These domestic 
and related bonds retain many ,in polite conformity. 
Underneath the entire structure of religion, however, 
beating against the foundations are tides of disapproval 
ranging in degree from lack of confidence, through in- 
difference, to the most violent repudiation of the validity 
of Christianity in all its forms and manifestations. 

"There are four groups to he home in mind, varying 
numerically in proportion to each other in the several 



RELIGIOUS 



95 



countries. No group is absent from any one. These are : 
(i) a violent anticlerical party, many of whom carry 
their opposition to religion of every form; (2) the more 
or less well-reasoned atheists and skeptics who look in- 
dulgently upon religion as harmless for women and for 
the lower classes, but who are themselves indifferent to 
its claims upon them personally; (3) the dissatisfied, if 
not disillusioned, and groping companies of souls who 
soon pass on to cynicism and hardness of heart; (4) 
those whose period of doubt and breaking away is ahead 
of them as they are overtaken by free education. Al- 
ready large defections have proceeded beyond the scholar 
class, and the turning to various cults has begun. The 
undermining of belief proceeding on a national scale in 
every division of the field is patent to all observers." 

3. Because Commissioned to Carry the Gospel to 
Unevangelized Populations. "Large numbers of the 
native Indians and Negro ex-slave descendants in given 
sections of Latin America are pagan, in some areas with- 
out any contact whatever with Christianity, and in many 
others with too little to affect appreciably either their 
religious conceptions, their character, or their low eco- 
nomic state. They constitute a field of pure missionary 
endeavor as apostolically conceived, which no body of 
Christians can ignore who accept responsibility for the 
world's evangelization. Scarcely less appealing are the 
spiritual needs of even more numerous bodies of peoples 
who are without any commensurate means for entrance 
upon Christian discipleship, instruction, and growth." 

4. In Consideration of the Contributions of Spiritual 
Freedom to Individual and National Character. "The 
progressive rapprochements of many of the great Chris- 



96 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

tjan communions are teaching this generation that isola- 
tion and aloofness are inimical to spiritual f ruitfulness ; 
and also that each body has some God-given contribution 
to make in the discovery and appropriation by all of the 
Christian message and ideal in their fullness. By as much 
as faithful adherents of the Roman Catholic Church, 
obedient to her sense of mission, establish her institutions 
and minister side by side with those of other communions 
on the continent of Europe, in the British Isles, in North 
America and elsewhere, so millions of Christians of the 
other communions conceive that they may not withhold 
from Latin America, or from any other part of the 
world, those aspects of Christian truth and life which 
have been revealed to them as among the supreme bless- 
ings of the faith. Without undertaking to exhaust the 
category, these are named as obligations heavily laid 
upon evangelical Christians in behalf of the whole world: 
the establishment of intellectual freedom; the opening, 
circulation and study of the Scriptures; the recognition 
of the right and value of democracy in ecclesiastical 
government. . . . 

''Liberty of conscience and opinion, moreover, is the 
mother of toleration and mutual respect, without the 
sacrifice of conviction or of principle. There can be 
differences and even opposition without bitterness. 
Evangelical Christianity, though not yet without bigots, 
has sufficiently learned the lessons of history, many of 
them painful, to throw the preponderance of its strength 
into the scale for freedom of intellect and conscience. 
It seeks this boon for Latin America in good faith, be- 
lieving that the acceptance and observance of the princi- 
ple by all communions in those lands would serve there 



RELIGIOUS 



97 



as elsewhere the cause of true rehgion and the related 
interests of humanity far better than do the voice of 
authority and the machinery of suppression." 

Latin- American Testimony. "Latin Americans, liter- 
ate and unlearned alike, are practically cut off from this 
moral and spiritual fountain. The earnest educator, 
statesman, and others in public and private life condemn, 
deplore, and exhort in the presence of a situation felt 
to be deplorable. In El Sur, of Arequipa (Peru), 
November 14, 1914, in an article headed 'Ruin,' the 
writer says : 'That which cannot be cured, and which fore- 
shadows death is moral failure. And this is the evil of 
this country. . . . We breathe a fetid atmosphere and 
are not sickened. The life of the country is poisoned, 
and the country needs a life purification. In the state in 
which we are, the passing of the years does not change 
men, it only accentuates the evil. A purging and a strug- 
gle are absolutely necessary.' The vice-rector of La 
Plata University, Argentina, in his opening address of 
the college year, called upon the university to recognize 
its obligation to develop character in the young men who 
pass through its halls. Tt is with great sadness that I 
witness the steady decrease in the number of unselfish, 
idealistic, genuine men ; how engulfing the tide of selfish- 
ness, of rebellion, of indiscipline and of insatiable ambi- 
tion; impunity so commonly supplants justice that I fear 
for the spiritual future of the land of my children, unless 
we make haste to remedy the great evil, which is disre- 
gard for the noble, and the great and unmeasured lust 
for material riches.' 

"This man who knows what he wants, but knows not 
how to get it, closed with the characteristically pessimistic 



98 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

note of almost all South Americans of high ideals. He 
quoted from Fogazzaro's The Saint, as follows: 'There 
are men who believe they disbelieve in God and who, 
when sickness and death approach, say, "Such is the 
law of life; such is nature, such is the order of the uni- 
verse. Let us bow the head, accept without a murmur, 
and go on complying with our duty." ' 'Gentlemen,' 
said the rector to his faculty, 'such men let us form not 
only in the University of La Plata, but in the great, com- 
plex university of Argentina.' It is pathetic that such 
men know not the way. It is a call in the dark — ^but 
is an increasing loud call, an increasing earnest call, a 
call that honestly wishes light. God hears that call and 
will not be long in answering unless men who know the 
way out are culpably slothful." 

Spiritual Famine. "These are the unfailing signs of 
spiritual famine to be observed universally wherever 
there is neglect of the Bible. Let there be a generous 
distribution and a wide use of the Scriptures from Mexico 
to the Straits of Magellan, and a corresponding rise in 
individual and collective conscience and volitional power 
will be registered in a generation. Immanuel Kant wrote : 
'The existence of the Bible as a book for the people is 
the greatest benefit which the human race has ever ex- 
perienced.' Millions of evangelical Christians nourished 
on the Bible know this to be true. They will be false 
to themselves and will fail in a solemn trust if they 
do not in humility and faithfulness declare and reveal 
the inexhaustible sources to whomsoever these remain 
undiscovered. . . . 

"Latin Americans, too, will waken to new and vigorous 
religious life when both the rights and obligations of free 



RELIGIOUS 



99 



disciples of Jesus are offered them. They are charged 
with indifference to the interests of rehgion. Is this 
surprising? When have their convictions concerning 
religion been respected, or their opinions sought? They 
are said to be undependable in voluntary Christian serv- 
ice. No school of experience has been in existence to 
call forth and to develop responsibility in the individual. 
The Inquisition was not calculated to stimulate inde- 
pendence and initiative. Even capable recruits for the 
national clergy have all but ceased to come forward save 
in countries like Chile, where ultramontanism was re- 
sisted with considerable success. Generations forced to 
stagnating conformity cannot be expected to flower with 
spontaneity into self-reliant and progressive Christians. 
The journey is a long one from blindly obeying human 
spiritual authority to full citizenship in a Christian 
democracy. Halting steps and even helplessness are 
certain to mark the early stages, but once accomplished 
on the part of substantial numbers, a new transforming 
order of society will appear in the life of these nations, 
conscious and rejoicing in their call, 'Not to be minis- 
tered unto but to minister.' " 

5. For the Interchange of Spirit, Principle and'^ Meth- 
ods in the Solution of Social Problems. ''The un- 
selfish, patriotic men and women of Europe and of both 
Americas, in public and in private capacities, are hard 
pressed by similar tasks of social amelioration and of 
moral regeneration confronting them. The enlightened 
peoples of the world are sharing with one another 
acquired knowledge, experience, leadership, and financial 
assistance in the advancement of health, education, 
character, and other fruits of Christian civilization. Such 



100 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

interchange should increasingly characterize the relations 
between Latin America and the Anglo-Saxon-Teutonic 
nations. Human suffering, ignorance, greed, and lust 
are not limited to national or provincial boundaries. 
'What an Italian surgeon or a German scientist discovers 
to-day is applied to-morrow in the world's hospitals and 
laboratories. When a Brazilian aeronaut contributes to 
the conquest of the air or an Argentine statesman adds 
a new doctrine to the international code, civilization ac- 
knowledges itself debtor. The time has come for free 
trade in moral resources. This is a plea for an inter- 
national consciousness to assert itself against Phariseeism 
when a sister nation's character is reviewed and against 
injured pride when the light is turned on at home.' " 

There is a field for such cooperation in education, 
especially the education of the masses of the people. 
**The field for cooperation in health, hygiene, and sanita- 
tion is equally extensive. It is difficult to see how educa- 
tion on these matters of life and death and even medical 
relief can humanely be withheld from large populations 
where the facilities to prevent and cure disease are alike 
inadequate and often absent altogether. . . . 

"The call to advance preventive medicine by education, 
example, and influence is urgent. It is hardly conceiv- 
able that intelligent service on the part of foreign Chris- 
tians would not be welcomed by every official and citizen 
interested in the promotion of playgrounds, better hous- 
ing, sanitation, and in antituberculosis and kindred move- 
ments. If barriers now exist, a better understanding, 
approach, and working basis should be contemplated." 

Social Hygiene. "Societies to combat intemperance, 
social vice, Indian exploitation, and other deeply-seated 



RELIGIOUS loi 

evils are scarcely more than projected. . . . With 
respect to sex education and antivice regulations Latin 
America has yet to travel nearly the entire distance to 
be abreast of contemporary Christian sentiment, social 
science, and enlightened procedure. Full credit is here 
given to the first steps taken forward, the more signifi- 
cant because so isolated and therefore courageous. . . . 
Here and there medical men are being heard and are 
appearing in print and supporting the continent life as 
consistent with health and virility. For generations the 
youth have been instructed to the contrary, as indeed 
most of them are still. The double standard of morality 
for men and women is generally accepted by both sexes. 
The great municipalities still put their faith in segrega- 
tion, police licenses, medical inspection, and the other 
futile measures against the evils of prostitution now being 
repudiated and abandoned on the Continent, in Great 
Britain and elsewhere as both unchristian and contribu- 
tory to the harm and misery it is desired to remove. . . . 
Along this whole battle line all informed lovers and 
champions of the human race must of¥er united resis- 
tance without cavil or false pride. The aggregate wis- 
dom and power of all are none too strong to cope suc- 
cessfully with the league of destructive forces grouped 
about the social evil. Its international character calls 
for the closest cooperation between the leaders in moral 
reform in Latin America, Europe, and the United States. 
"To the social problems enumerated above may be 
added such others as child labor, the oppression and 
neglect of the poor, inequitable taxation, class govern- 
ment, the evils of monopolies, special privileges, and un- 
fair labor conditions. All these problems must be faced 



I02 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

courageously in the light of Christian principles. But 
so far in Latin America the Roman Church has con- 
tributed little or no practical help toward their solution. 
Nevertheless, there are to be found here and there earnest 
men, of liberal tendencies, who, for patriotic and humani- 
tarian reasons, are striving for the betterment of their 
country. They are the friends of education, and realize 
that character is the true basis of national strength. Does 
not the welcome that such men are prepared to ex- 
tend to the forces which develop character, constitute 
a golden opportunity for the evangelical church in Latin 
America ?"i 

A Representative Voice. One of the most striking 
addresses at the Panama Congress was made by a mem- 
ber of the Roman Catholic Church, Judge Emilio del 
Toro of Porto Rico. His testimony and appeal were 
both illustrative and representative. After speaking of 
the influence of religious liberty and of the open Bible 
in the United States, Judge del Toro went on: 

''Latin America is coming out into the life of civiliza- 
tion with a different lot. The seeds of Christianity sown 
since the times of the colonizers have produced their 
fruits, and wherever there has been the most liberty there 
its mission has become the noblest in practise. On the 
boundaries between Chile and Argentine, two of those 
American nations of Spanish origin which have attained 
the highest civilization, the Christ of the Andes, with 
his open arms a symbol of peace and love, shows to the 
world how Christians settle their disputes. Besides, the 
religious life of the Spanish-American countries has been 



^Report of Commission I to the Panama Congress^ 22-49. 



RELIGIOUS 



103 



characterized by the almost absolute predominance of 
the Catholic Church ; and in my judgment the same benef- 
icent influence which Catholicism has exercised in the 
development of its civilization would have been greater 
had it been obliged to contend face to face from the 
earliest times with a vigorous Protestant movement. 

"Until a few years ago, the Catholic Church was, in 
my native island, Porto Rico, the state religion. Among 
the public expenditures those for worship were con- 
spicuous. The influence of the clergy extended every- 
where. And what was the result, after four centuries of 
abundant opportunities? A people for the most part 
indifferent or unbelieving. 

"There took place a change of regime. The church 
was separated from the state. A struggle began under 
the protection of the free institutions of North America, 
established in the island; Presbyterians, Methodists, 
Lutherans, Baptists, Episcopalians began their work. 
Faint-hearted Catholic priests, accustomed to the enjoy- 
ment of special privileges, descried the ruin of their 
church. But it was not so. The spirit of the North 
entered into her and men accustomed to a life of freedom 
gave her a new impetus. And to-day, separated from 
the state, sustained by herself, she is realizing a nobler 
and more Christian mission than in the time when her 
power was absolute. 

"Those who love the progress of the nations, those 
who study history dispassionately, those who have faith 
in the improvement of mankind, cannot but see with 
deep sympathy that the reformation is spreading, that 
free investigation opens broader horizons to the human 
spirit, that Christianity, preached and interpreted by 



104 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

all, disseminates its beneficent influence and raises the 
level of society. 

*Torto Rico is a case in point and is conclusive evidence 
to me of the results which will be obtained in all of 
Latin America from initiating and sustaining a vigorous 
and altruistic Protestant movement. Not only will reli- 
gious feeling grow; not only will Christianity win con- 
verts; not only will more prayer be offered in spirit 
and in truth by many men; not only will it redound in 
good to the Catholic Church itself, but the influence of 
Christianity in the life of the Spanish- American democ- 
racies will be greatly multiplied. There is something 
which lives in us which is part of our very being, and 
it is the heritage received from our ancestors. And 
wherever the reformation goes, wherever the Protestant 
minister accomplishes his mission, there it will go, there 
that heritage of so many generations of peoples of the 
North who strove for the freedom of many will act and 
react. In his relations with the comniunity, in his judg- 
ments on public affairs, in the direction of his own insti- 
tutions, in his administration of charity, in his schools 
and hospitals, in his ideas of the uplift of the masses and 
of the dignity of labor, in his spirit of tolerance, the 
minister, if he is a legitimate representative of Christian 
civiUzation, will be an inspiration to the people."^ 

II. An Open Door 

The Latin-American nations have opened the doors 
wide for all sincere, friendly, and sympathetic assistance. 
There was a time when they were closed, when religious 

^The Panama Star and Herald, Feb. 17, 1916. 



RELIGIOUS 



105 



liberty was denied, but one by one the various republics, 
even where they still support the Roman Catholic Church 
as the state church, have admitted or even welcomed and 
invited the forces of the evangelical churches. 

Religious Toleration. "Full recognition of re- 
ligious liberty is now accorded either by the fundamental 
law or through its liberal interpretation by all the repub- 
lics of the western hemisphere. The last to grant this 
is Peru. The fourth article of the constitution of Peru 
reads: 'The religion of the state is the Roman Catholic 
Apostolic ; the state protects it, and does not permit the 
public exercise of any other.' A bill to remove the last 
clause passed both houses of Congress of 1913. To be 
effective it required the approval of the legislature of 
1914. This was secured in the Senate, but failed to reach 
a vote in the Chamber of Deputies under heavy political, 
social, and even domestic pressure, until November, 191 5, 
when the measure was hurriedly called up and passed by 
an overwhelming majority. The president permitted it 
to become law by expiration of time. The law has not 
permitted the erection of buildings or ownership of 
property for purposes of worship unrecognized by the 
state. Permission to build the Anglo-American church 
in Lima was obtained only under pressure by the minis- 
ters of Great Britain, Germany, and the United States, 
it being stipulated that the building must convey no out- 
ward appearance of a church. Nevertheless, men of 
liberal tendencies have held important positions under 
the government, which, at least on one occasion, was 
willing to indemnify evangelical workers for losses suf- 
fered. Both presidents and cabinet ministers have sus- 
tained colporteurs in the right to sell Bibles. 



io6 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

"In the other countries practical religious freedom is 
in effect. Uniform testimony is born to the fidelity with 
which the higher officials of the governments administer 
the guaranties of religious freedom. Local authorities 
in the more remote and less advanced regions are some- 
times found lending themselves and their officers to 
overt persecution and even to violence. In other areas 
the clergy privately are more powerful than the local 
government and are able to incite illegal opposition and 
to protect offenders until the higher jurisdictions are 
reached. Weapons of social ostracism, business boycott, 
and political discrimination are still widely employed 
against non-conforming believers. Unhappily, few, if 
any peoples have not in their past history yielded to such 
unchristian, undemocratic passions and misguided zeal. 
Many are not yet guiltless. The extent of the abandon- 
ment of these practises marks the displacing of fanaticism 
and ignorance by the graces of true disciples of Jesus." 

Religious Equality Still Lacking. "Religious lib- 
erty, however, must not here be confused or identified 
with religious equality. On this latter aspect of the case 
there is much more to be recorded. In several countries 
non-Catholics are under certain disabilities. Support of 
the church establishment is imposed upon all taxpayers 
alike save in Mexico, Bolivia, and Cuba, where separa- 
tion from the state has taken place. In Colombia, chil- 
dren may not attend the public schools who absent them- 
selves from the services of the church. The ecclesiastical 
court is above the civil courts, and any party to a non- 
Roman Catholic marriage can at any time get it annulled 
and be remarried in that church. Control of hospitals 
by nuns in Ecuador is a decided limitation of the liberty 



RELIGIOUS 107 

of needy persons. These are frequently put out of the 
hospital on their refusal to receive the ministrations of 
the priest. Chileans and Peruvians report similar meas- 
ures of compulsory confession." ^ 

The freedom already accorded must be used, that the 
people may enter into a yet larger freedom. 

III. In What Manner and Spirit Should This Call 
Be Met ? 

Commission II, of the Panama Congress, on Method 
and Message, dealt with this question. The introduction 
of its report illustrated the spirit which it advocated in 
answer : 

The Universality of Religion. "The commission 
has assumed that in the sphere of fundamental religious 
values — the spiritual, intellectual, and social needs whose 
satisfaction has to do with man's right relations to God 
and to his fellow-man, and with the highest welfare of 
nations — Latin America does not differ from North 
America, or from any other land whether nominally 
Christian or non-Christian, however apparent may be the 
diversities in national temperament, historical experience, 
present status, and external forms of the respective civili- 
zations. Beside this recognition of the identity in all 
lands of fundamental religious needs growing out of 
common humanity and brotherhood, the Commission 
would urge the validity of the corresponding Christian 
conviction that the gospel of Christ is universally identi- 
cal in its essential truths and in its power to meet the 
deepest needs of the soul. The gospel for Latin Amer- 



^Report of Commission I to the Panama Congress, 54, 55. 



io8 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

ica, as for all the world, is a message of life — sufficient, 
abundant, inexhaustible. Furthermore, the commission 
conceives that the right and only function, as well as 
the unescapable obligation, of the evangelical churches 
in Latin America, as elsewhere, is faithfully to proclaim, 
to interpret and to practise the Christian gospel in its 
purity and fullness, in order to secure its voluntary 
acceptance by those who have not received it and to 
seek the application of its principles and the communica- 
tion of its spirit to individual, social, and national life." 

The Religious Question Paramount. "The timeli- 
ness of the theme of this commission is sufficiently indi- 
cated by mention of the wide-spread solicitude concern- 
ing the religious life of Latin America, which, in the 
last few years, has emerged in many parts of the Chris- 
tian world, a solicitude to which the strongest expression 
has been given by religious leaders, both Roman Catholic 
and Protestant, who are in immediate contact with the 
special problems existent in the republics. Scarcely less 
keen — despite much indifference to religious matters on 
the part of the educated classes — has been the interest 
evinced by eminent patriots, statesmen, and scholars, 
especially in South America, who, while without a posi- 
tive religious message themselves, are nevertheless con- 
cerned as to the content and quality of the inner life of 
their people, and as to the religious goal to which the 
masses are tending. . . . 

"The religious question notonly confronts the Latin- 
American peoples to-day, emerging as a vital issue from 
the experiences of the past ; it is discerned also as an all- 
important element in the future national prosperity. As 
religion is the soul of history, the character of the com- 



RELIGIOUS 109 

iiig development of Latin civilization depends in supreme 
degree upon the quality of its moral and spiritual life. 
Only upon a sound religious basis can the Latin charac- 
ter and the Latin culture rise to their full possibilities 
and fulfil their potential mission in the western hemi- 
sphere. 

"At the present time when South America stands on 
tiptoe, facing a new industrial era and preparing to 
expand in vast commercial enterprises, when all the re- 
publics are responding to the enlarging impulses of 
Pan- Americanism ; when Mexico is struggling through 
revolution to a larger and purer freedom; when Central 
America and the Antilles are feeling the thrill of a livelier 
destiny by the opening of the Panama . Canal ; when that 
great avenue of the seas, which, while it cuts the narrow 
bond that joined the two continents, thereby unites them 
by the more enduring ties of mutual exchange in com- 
modities and ideals, of international sympathy and friend- 
ship, of common purpose and of the common mission 
of Christian democracy — at such a time no question could 
be more important than this : In order that the churches 
may adjust themselves to the new day and be an up- 
lifting and guiding force in spiritual things, what shall 
be the message and the method of their ministry?" 

Factors Influencing Evangelical Methods. The 
Report sets forth the "relevant facts in Latin- American 
civilization" which must be in view in considering the 
method of help. It singles out (i) racial complexity, (2) 
the Latin spirit, (3) the religious inheritance, (4) politi- 
cal isolation, and (5) democratic idealism. 

Of the religious inheritance it is said: "Abundant 
evidence establishes the fact that the vast statistical mem- 



no THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

bership of the census reports is largely nominal and I 
superficial. That there are immense and growing defec- 
tions from the Roman Church, not only in inward con- 
viction and sympathy, but in outward allegiance and I 
conformity, is patent beyond contradiction in every Latin- 
American land. Multitudes, having become alienated 
from the Roman Church, are contemptuous or antago- 
nistic toward all religion; still vaster multitudes have 
drifted into utter indifference regarding the teachings of 
Roman Catholicism, while yielding prudential compliance 
with its forms and customs. 

"Scientific candor based on indisputable testimony 
from both Roman Catholic and Protestant sources com- 
pels the statement that in the Roman Church, Latin 
America has inherited an institution which, though still 
influential, is rapidly declining in power. With notable 
exceptions its priesthood is discredited by the thinking 
classes. Its moral life is weak and its spiritual witness 
faint. At the present time it is giving the people neither 
the Bible, nor the gospel, nor the intellectual guidance, 
nor the moral dynamic, nor the social uplift which they 
need. It is weighted with medievalism and other non- 
Christian accretions."! 

Divorce of Religion from Practise. Lord Bryce has 
set forth temperately the judgment which he formed 
after years of acquaintance with Latin America and his 
personal visit: "Another fact strikes the traveler with 
surprise. Both the intellectual life and the ethical stand- 
ards of conduct of these countries seem to be entirely 
divorced from religion. The women are almost uni- 



^Report of Commission II to the Panama Congress, 7-9, 17, 18. 



RELIGIOUS III 

versally 'practising' Catholics, and so are the peasantry, 
though the Christianity of the Indians bears only a dis- 
tant resemblance to that of Europe. But men of the 
upper or educated class appear wholly indifferent to 
theology and to Christian worship. It has no interest 
for them. They are seldom actively hostile to Chris- 
tianity, much less are they offensive when they speak 
of it, but they think it does not concern them, and 
may be left to women and peasants. The Catholic re- 
vival or reaction of the first half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury did not touch Spanish America, which is still under 
the influence of the anti-Catholic current of the later 
eighteenth. The Roman Church in Spain and Portugal 
was then, and indeed is now, far below the level at which 
it stands in France, Germany, and Italy. Its worship was 
more formal, its pressure on the laity far heavier, its 
clergy less exemplary in their lives. In Spanish America 
the obscurantism was at least as great and the other 
faults probably greater. There was not much persecu- 
tion, partly, no doubt, because there was hardly any 
heterodoxy, and the victims of the Inquisition were com- 
paratively few. But the ministers of religion had ceased 
not only to rouse the soul, but to supply a pattern for 
conduct. There were always some admirable men to be 
found among them, some prelates models of piety and 
virtue, some friars devoted missionaries and humanely 
zealous in their efforts to protect the Indians. Still the 
church as a whole had lost its hold on the conscience and 
thought of the best spirits, and that hold it has never 
regained. In saying this I am comparing Catholic South 
America not with the Protestant countries of Europe, but 
with such Roman Catholic countries as France, Rhenish 



112 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

Prussia, and Bavaria, in all of which the Roman Church 
is a power in the world of thought and morals. In east- 
ern Europe the Orthodox Church has similarly shriveled 
up and ceased to be an intellectual force, but there it has 
at least retained the affection of the upper class, and is 
honored for its fidelity during centuries of Mussulman 
oppression. In the more advanced parts of South Amer- 
ica it seems to be regarded merely as a harmless Old 
World affair which belongs to a past order of things just 
as much as does the rule of Spain, but which may, so 
long as it does not interfere with politics, be treated with 
the respect which its antiquity commands. In both cases 
the undue stress laid upon the dogmatic. side of theology 
and the formal or external side of worship has resulted 
in the loss of spiritual influence. In all the Spanish coun- 
tries, the church had trodden down the laity and taken 
freedom and responsibility from them more than befell 
anywhere else in Christendom, making devotion consist 
in absolute submission. Thus when at last her sway 
vanished, her moral influence vanished with it. This 
absence of a religious foundation for thought and con- 
duct is a grave misfortune for Latin America."^ 

And Sr. Calderon sums up his own judgment in the 
words : 

"From Mexico to Chile the religion is the same; the 
intolerance of alien cults is the same ; so are the clerical- 
ism, the anti-clericalism, the fanaticism, and the super- 
ficial free thought; the influence of the clergy in the 
state, upon women, and the schools; the lack of true 
religious feeling under the appearance of general belief. "^ 

'^South America: Observation and Impressions, 582, 583. 
^ Latin America: Its Rise and Progress, 337. 



RELIGIOUS 113 



IV. The Christian Responsibility 

In the light of all the facts it is declared, and surely 
with justice, that the evangelical churches have a funda- 
mental obligation to extend their help to Latin America 
and that evangelical Christianity need not hesitate to 
declare that through the acceptance and application of 
the gospel of Christ, the highest hopes of the earnest 
leaders of Latin America can be fulfilled wherein they 
are right, and transcended wherein they are imperfect; 
and that the true welfare of the republics can be realized 
in the establishment of what Jesus meant by the kingdom 
of God. 

What, then, should be the burden and application of 
the Christian message for Latin America to-day? 

The Christian Message. "First of all these democ- 
racies have a right to hear, and it is the church's solemn 
duty to proclaim the primary gospel of Christ, the evan- 
gelical message of the New Testament, the essentials of 
Christianity, primitive and pure, the clear notes of a 
redeeming evangel, unencumbered either by the ecclesi- 
astical accretions of Roman Catholicism or by ultra- 
sectarian forms and dogmas of Protestantism, and the 
confident assertion that the true Christian church is the 
home and should be the propelling force of true democ- 
racy. . . . 

"The leaders of the Latin- American revolutions sought 
in certain forms of social idealism for the secret ' of 
political organization and commercial order in the new 
republics. They sought in vain. For no system of 
government needs religious ideals, the conception of the 
will of God concerning man, more than a democracy. 



114 THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAS 

Liberty, equality, fraternity were religious principles, 
elements of the life of Christian churches, before they 
ever became potent war cries of revolution and ideals 
of society in general. Apart from their religious origin 
and inspiration, these three great ideals have neither 
truth or potency. It is the Christian gospel which first 
established them as working, organizing forces. From 
the Christian churches they passed over into the general 
consciousness of modern nations. But apart from the 
Christ, and his revelation of the Father's will and purpose 
concerning man, they have no reality. It is their passion 
for democracy which should lead the rulers and philoso- 
phers, the statesmen and lecturers of Latin America 
back to Christ. For his kingship is the only real source 
of that individual liberty, that mystic equality, that uni- 
versal fraternity, whose glory appears in the Christian 
life, whose ideals are striven after passionately by the 
evangelical churches, whose partial fruits are seen in the 
incomplete democracies of the modern world."^ 

Are not all those who perceive that these treasures 
are laid up for them in Christ, and that in Christ alone 
they can be found, and that men and nations alike are 
hopeless without them, bound to share what they know 
with other men? Whether these other men be within 
our own race and nation or without it is of no conse- 
quence, or whether they be of nations near by or far 
away,, of nations like our own, nominally Christian, or 
of non-Christian nations across the seas. Ever those 
who can help must help. And if any services in offering 
men the clear gift of Christ undimmed by institution or 



^Report of Commission II to the Panama Congress, 22, 44, 45. 



RELIGIOUS 115 

tradition can be given by us to Latin America, the duty 
is not more and not less because they are near and be- 
cause they bear kindred names. In Bishop Brent's 
biography of Bishop Satterlee is preserved a statement 
of Dr. Satterlee's at the time the Protestant Episcopal 
Church was considering its relations to Mexico, and 
Dr. Satterlee with others was urging that it was the 
Church's duty to go in and to give its aid. "The appeal," 
said he, ''is from our brothers who are struggling out of 
ignorance, superstition, and darkness into light, faith, and 
knowledge, and it seems to be a strange idea, that while 
we are in duty bound to carry the gospel to the heathen, 
we should not go to the help of our brethren in Mexico 
because they are our brethren. That which one would 
think would give them a double claim upon us is made 
the plea why we should recognize no claim at all." And 
Dr. Satterlee added the question which John so pene- 
tratingly asks, "Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth 
his brother have need, and shutteth up his compassion 
from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" 

Is that love in us? If it is, there can be but one issue. 
We shall seek, each man in the work of the body with 
which he is connected, to enlarge the agencies of the 
Christian churches for the preaching of the gospel of the 
New Testament in Latin America, and we shall repre- 
sent in all our own thoughts and attitudes toward Latin 
America, and demand that our nation represent in its 
declarations and in its deeds, the principles of that gospel. 



Mission Study Courses 



** Any where, provided it be forward." — David Livingstone 



Prepared under the direction of the 
MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 

OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 

Educational Committee: G. F. Sutherland, Chairman; 
A. E. Armstrong, J. I. Armstrong, Hugh L. Burleson, 
E. C. Cronk, W. E. Doughty, H. Paul Douglass, Arthur 
R. Gray, R. A. Hutchison, B. Carter Millikin, John M. 
Moore, John H. Poorman, James K. Quay, T. Bronson Ray. 



The aim of the Movement Is to publish a series of text- 
books covering the various home and foreign mission fields 
and problems and written by leading authorities. 

The following text-books having a sale of over 1,750,000 
have been published: 

1. The Price of Africa. Biographical. By S. Earl 
Taylor. 

2. Into All the World. A general survey of missions. 
By Amos R. Wells. 

3. Princely Men in the Heavenly Kingdom. Bio- 
graphical. By Harlan P. Beach. 

4. Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdpm. Revised Edition. 
A study of Japan. By John H. DeForest. 

5. Heroes of the Cross in America. Home Missions. 
Biographical. By Don O. Shelton. 

^ 6. Daybreak in the Dark Continent. Revised Edi- 
tion. A study of Africa. By Wilson S. Naylor. 

7. The Christian Conquest of India. A study of 
India. By James M. Thoburn. 

8. Aliens OR Americans ? A study of Immigration. By 
Howard B. Grose. 



MISSION STUDY COURSES 

9. The Uplift of China. Revised Edition. A study of 
China. By Arthur H. Smith. 

10. The Challenge of the City. A study of the City. 
By Josiah Strong. 

11. The Why and How of Foreign Missions. A study 
of the relation of the home Church to the foreign mis- 
sionary enterprise. By Arthur J, Brown. 

12. The Moslem World. A study of the Mohammedan 
world. By Samuel M. Zwemer. 

13. The Frontier. A study of the New West. By 
Ward Piatt. 

14. South America : Its Missionary Problems. A study 
of South America. By Thomas B. Neely. 

15. The Upward Path : The Evolution of a Race. A 
study of the Negro. By Mary Helm. 

16. Korea in Transition. A study of Korea. By 
James S. Gale. 

17. Advance in the Antilles. A study of Cuba and 
Porto Rico. By Howard B. Grose. 

18. The Decisive Hour of Christian Missions. A 
study of conditions throughout the non-Christian world. 
By John R. Mott. 

19. India Awakening. A study of present conditions 
in India. By Sherwood Eddy. 

20. The Church of the Open Country. A study of 
the problem of the Rural Church. By Warren H. Wilson. 

21. The Call of the World. A survey of conditions 
at home and abroad of challenging interest to men. By 
W. E. Doughty. 

22. The Emergency in China. A study of present-day 
conditions in China. By F. L. Hawks Pott. 

23. Mexico To-day : Social, Political, and Religious Con- 
ditions. A study of present-day conditions in Mexico. 
By George B. Winton. 

24. Immigrant Forces. A study of the immigrant in his 
home and American environment. By William P. Shriver. 

25. The New Era in Asia. Contrast of early and 
present conditions in the Orient. By Sherwood Eddy. 

26. The Social Aspects of Foreign Missions. A study 
of the social achievements of foreign missions. By 
W. H. P. Faunce. 

27. The New Home Missions. A study of the social 
achievements and social program of home missions. By 
H. Paul Douglass. 

28. The American Indian on the New Trail. A 
story of the Red Men of the United States and the Chris- 
tian gospel. By Thomas C. Moffett. 



MISSION STUDY COURSES 

29. The Individual and the Social Gospel. A study 
of the individual in the local church and his relation to the 
social message of the gospel. By Shailer Mathews. 

30. Rising Churches in Non-Christian Lands. A 
study of the native Church and its development in the 
foreign mission field. By Arthur J. Brown. 

31. The Churches at Work. A statement of the 
work of the churches in the local community in the United 
States. By Charles L. White. 

S2. Efficiency Points. The Bible, Service, Giving, 
Prayer — four conditions of efficiency. By W. E. Doughty. 

33. South American Neighbors. A study of South 
America, including the results of the Panama Conference. 
By Homer C. Stuntz. 

34. The South To-Day. A study of the religious life 
of the Southern States. By John M. Moore. 

35. The Unity of the Americas. A discussion of the 
relations of commerce, education, politics, and religion 
between the Americas. By Robert E. Speer. 

In addition to the above courses, the following have been 
published especially for use among younger persons : 

1. Uganda's White Man of Work. The story of 
Alexander M. Mackay of Africa. By Sophia Lyon Fahs. 

2. Servants of the King. A series of eleven sketches 
of famous home and foreign missionaries. By Robert E. 
Speer. 

3. Under Marching Orders. The story of Mary Porter 
Gamewell of China. By Ethel Daniels Hubbard. 

4. Winning the Oregon Country. The story of Marcus 
Whitman and Jason Lee in the Oregon country. By 
John T. Paris. 

5. The Black Bearded Barbarian. The story of 
George Leslie Mackay of Formosa. By Marian Keith. 

6. Livingstone the Pathfinder. The story of David 
Livingstone. By Basil Mathews. 

7. Ann of Ava. The story of Ann Hasseltine Judson 
of Burma. By Ethel Daniels Hubbard. 

8. Comrades in Service. Eleven brief biographies of 
Christian workers. By Margaret E. Burton. 

9. Makers of South America. Sketches of twelve 
epoch-making leaders in South American history. By 
Margarette Daniels. 

These books are published by mutual arrangement among 
the home and foreign mission boards, to whom all orders 
should be addressed. They are bound uniformly and are 
sold at 60 cents in cloth, and 40 cents in paper; prepaid. 
Nos. 21, .29, 32, and 35 are 25 cents in cloth, prepaid. 



